right now, 87 very large wildfires are torching millions of acres across now ten states. at least 36 people are dead because of these blazes. dozens more remain missing this morning. >> listen, the west coast, it's on fire. california officials say that climate change is to blame, but the president, he once again rejected the science during his visit to the state. and he's denying the science when it comes to the coronavirus as well. as the u.s. death toll nears 195,000, president trump held another packed indoor event. we should note he was socially distanced. the crowd who came to support him was not. and more audio and more evidence the president knew just how deadly this virus really is. and an april excerpt from bob woodward's taped interview, the president said quote, it's a killer if it gets you. but let's start with cnn's ed lavandera in gulfport, mississippi, where residents are now preparing for sally. ed, for folks there they know the power of these hurricanes particularly storm surge. what are folks -- what are officials there most concerned about today? >> reporter: well, this is a waiting game today as we get the latest forecast details from the national weather service and people tracking this storm. it is just slow moving. about 2 miles per hour out in that direction. so for -- from here, where we are in gulfport, mississippi, to pensacola, florida, which is 135 miles away, much of the region has been preparing for this storm for the last couple of days. and you can see the storm surge and the surf beginning to pick up. we have not seen any rain bands yet here in gulfport, mississippi. which we had expected to see by this time yesterday, and so we are waiting for this storm to arrive. the eye of the storm might not make landfall for another 24 hours or so that gives you an idea of how much it's slowed down here on the gulf coast. so there are crews setting up piles of sand and people can make their own sand bags and take them home. because this is going to be the major rain event over the next couple of days and the storm surge will reach 6 to 9 feet where we are right here in gulfport, mississippi, the floods could very well be the biggest story that emerges here in the next couple of days. jim and poppy, that's what many of the residents tell us they're preparing and bracing for. remember, this place was hit 15 years ago by hurricane katrina and they know the potency of these type of storms. right now they're most concerned about the flooding. >> ed lavandera, thank you for being there as we await for this to hit. we appreciate your reporting very much. >> and we're just at the beginning of storm season here. gulfport where ed is is in harrison county. we have the harrison county emergency management director and mr. lacy, thank you so much for taking the time this morning. >> thank you for having us on. >> okay. so you have a lot heading your way, it's early in the season. i know it's hard to predict. sometimes the worst forecast don't turn out, so tell us what your primary concerns are now and how concerned that this is an outlier storm? >> well, we have been trying to push this message since friday and it's the water. be it the water from the storm surge as you are all showing, down on the front side, the gulf side, mississippi sound side. but we have both the biloxi bay and the bay of st. louis pushing our waters into our bays lakes which are pushing the waters up the streams, creeks and our three major rivers which we have all flood warnings out on those. moderate to major categories so water be it from rainfall, be it from storm surge, be it from water runoff, we don't want to lose a life because of that. >> i hear you. so tell me about the particular challenges of managing evacuation orders, storm preparations in the midst of a pandemic. are you finding people don't want to leave home, right, don't want to go to evacuation centers if it gets to that point. i mean, how do you manage? >> of course we did open up shelters yesterday afternoon in anticipation of the storm. we opened up three, of course we have more on stand by and we have people ready to go. we had -- we have a very small number of people that showed up. we're not going to close them down because we're out of the wood work, but as your reporter was saying, we haven't seen the rain bands hit us directly yet. we have seen some rain bands to the north, not in our county, but, you know, each storm is a little bit different. they're coming, you know, we again we anticipate this afternoon and evening being worse. sustained winds are picking up. you know, some are some tropical form gust hitting that 35, 45 miles an hour on some higher elevations. so it's interesting, a good thing we tried to prepare for the marathon. we are doing that, but, you know this wake is -- you know it's one of those concerns that we worry about and covid is keeping the numbers down. but we're ready for them. >> let me ask you this, because it seems like there's a natural disaster every day. you have the fires on the west coast. you have the frequent storms on the gulf coast here. are you overwhelmed? are you getting the help you need from the federal government, right, given that there's so much to respond to and prepare for at this time. >> yes, yes. you know, our federal partners are helping us. now, of course, you know, a lot of it where we were -- where we had our center fully -- we're fully functional, but, you know, we're pretty tight in here in trying to keep the numbers down. and of course, doing the temp checks we go a little bit further and we're doing checks and we're doing those three or four times a day. but we have overcome a lot of the technical issues because of zoom, skype conference calling and all of that. we're meeting, it's just that people aren't physically getting in the same room. >> yep. >> we keep a zoom room open, you know, since we're operational. our partners join us that way and we're seeing them live on camera and answering questions. >> good. well, i'm glad you're able to get the resources you need. we know you have a lot coming your way so we wish you the best of luck. >> thank you, we appreciate it. >> well, a lot to face there, poppy. >> yeah, for sure. let's turn now to our meteorologist, chad myers. talk to us about sally's path and how slow the storm is moving not a good thing, because it will sit and dump the rain. >> let's look at what happened to harvey when it stopped over houston and then they had 60 inches of rain. this is moving 2 miles per hour to the north. the pressures were beginning to go down which is a bad thing because lower pressure makes wind. right now it's 90 or 80 millibars. to the north there are storms. we are picking up gusts in the 50 to 60 mile range. there was a chevron oil rig out there at 500 feet above sea level and it had a gust to 91 in the past hour and a half. there goes the storm, it doesn't make landfall until this time tomorrow. somewhere between likely biloxi and maybe gulfport. kind of in the middle, maybe daphne island. there's no way to tell it's going so slowly. because it's going so slowly, the amount of rainfall will be in feet. could be 20 inches of rainfall and the hurricane center ken graham, he said he wouldn't be surprised if some places saw 30 inches of rain. >> wow. that is -- well, a lot for communities to absorb. chad myers, stay on top of it as he brings us information, we'll bring it right to you. still to come this hour, in his own words, the president might be ignoring health experts in public, but in new audio from bob woodward it's clear he knew how deadly this virus was. still contrary to his public statements. as wildfires rage out of control, president trump continues to assert that climate change plays no role whatsoever and questions if it exists. we are learning of the true heroism of an l.a. county deputy after an ambush attack. she saves her partner's life while suffering a severe gunshot wound herself. we'll have an update on both of their conditions ahead. only mas? 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that you see, for instance, at that event yesterday, the crowd had no social distancing. the presidented a a great distance from the crowd much like you see in the white house. contact tracing, all of the things we don't have as a country. >> exactly. and the president said so. he gave an interview with a nevada reporter and he was asked are you concerned about catching the coronavirus and he said, first of all, while i'm a little concerned about how close you are to me -- maybe he was joking, but then he alluded to his distance from the crowd. the crowd is not distanced from each other, but the president is distanced from them. >> yeah. >> john harwood, thanks a lot for the reporting from the white house. the u.s. is closing in on 200,000 coronavirus deaths and six months into the crisis the reality of how it's impacting children is becoming more clear to us. >> yeah. such concern understandably for parents particularly as student goes back to school. many still staying at home. we are learning nearly 550,000 children have tested positive for the virus. cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is here. tell us what this is teaching us. because children have been at home many have through this. now they're testing more -- oh, we may have lost elizabeth. >> yeah. she can't hear us. >> we'll get her back and we'll ask her if she knows the smart answers to the hard questions. give us a moment to fix that. meanwhile, millions of acres are scorched out west and the president is digging in on his claims that climate change doesn't have anything to do with it. we're moments way from the opening bell on wall street. take a look, futures are higher, stocks are set to start the day in positive territories and the coronavirus hits some of the world's largest economies hard. the trend is reversing in china. they're in recovery mode. retail sales up in august for the first time all year. >> before the bell brought to you by e-trade. trade commission free today with no account minimums and go to cnn.com/before the bell to stay on top of markets and sign up for the daily newsletter. rt the bidding at $5. thank you, sir. looking for $6. $6 over there! do i hear 7? 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if you give a climate denier four more years in the white house, why would anyone be surprised when more of america is under water? >> our meteorologist chad myers is back with us. chad, we're glad you're here because there are two weather crises converging in the united states right now. the fires in the ten states and the west coast, hurricane sally which is one of five storms churning in the atlantic right now and the president says science doesn't know. set the record straight for the american people in terms of how climate change contributes significantly to moments like this. >> science knows where our carbon dioxide has come from and where it's going. science knows that carbon dioxide holds in green house gases, so does methane and others. science knows there is limited knowledge that tornadoes get stronger, but close to some knowledge limited evidence that hurricanes can be stronger because the water's warmer. that just makes sense. it doesn't make more hurricanes, it just makes the hurricanes that happen have more potential. we know that because sally's in very warm water in the gulf of mexi mexico. it's 2 degrees warmer than it should be. we know that climate change makes drought and we know that it makes floods and this confuses people saying you can't have it both ways, chad. how can you have flood and how can you have drought and call it climate change? because the patterns get stuck sometimes and when the patterns get stuck like california has been where it's dry there, compared to last year where they were stuck the other way it was wet there. there were very few acres burning california, because they did have rain. well, the rain made things grow and then the drought made things die and then all of a sudden you get drought. so look at the numbers here. these are the biggest acre fires in the west here in california since 1930. five of the biggest fires so far out of the top ten have been this year. 3 million acres and more in the west still burning because of the drought, because of the bark beetles. the bark beetles because they're not dying, because it's not cold anymore. the bark beetles kill trees, the trees are dead and they're standing there and they're burning there and on fire. that's all i've got. >> yeah. >> chad, we are so grateful for that. for you, for setting the record straight. i'm going to post that on social media and tweet it out. if they have any questions about what science tells us. thank you very much. >> it's frustrating sometimes. to talk and talk and no one listens. >> and the science says -- as you note there it's clear on this and we're living through it. >> yeah. >> chad, thank you. we'll be back to you soon for an update on the storm. the race for the vaccine but none of it wouldn't be possible if volunteers didn't answer the call. we'll talk to the doctors leading the trial and one of those participating in it. you'll want to hear from the two of them next. and at fidelity, you'll get planning and advice to help you prepare for the future, without sacrificing what's most important to you today. because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction you're moving is forward. because with fidelity, you can feel confident even as i look toward 65, one thing hasn't changed i still love getting on the ice. which means i need to stay healthy. now, as i'm thinking about selecting a medicare plan, i know i want one that has the kind of coverage that takes a total approach to my health. one that connects all the different parts of my health care to keep me aging actively. aetna medicare. keep doing what you love. knowinit's hard.re is hard. eliminate who you are not first, and you're going to find yourself where you need to be. ♪ the race is never over. the journey has no port. the adventure never ends, because we are always on the way. ♪ ♪ welcome back. we lost elizabeth cohen a moment ago on the question of more children in this country testing positive for coronavirus. particularly as they go back to school. elizabeth cohen, what are we learning from this? is this showing that the infection is spreading like wildfire among kids, is a big portion more testing of children? what do we know? >> let's look at the numbers because we can comment on them. this study looked at children, it said that there had been nearly 550,000 cases among children since the start of the pandemic and that that is nearly 10% of all reported cases. when you just look at the most recent time period, august 27th through september 10th, it's almost 73,000 cases. why we are seeing -- you know, the other folks have mentioned we are seeing more children now than we did before with covid-19, that could be because school is back in session. it could be because we're testing children more and in the beginning we weren't testing them so much because typically, they are not very sick. it is important to note that there are complications that are quite terrible in children. thankfully they are unusual. >> the question is do they bring it home? elizabeth cohen, thank you for helping understand. poppy? trials for the moderna vaccine they're moving forward and they're working to increase minority participation. the biotech company slowed the trials a few weeks ago due to the lack of diverse involvement and now the numbers run to nearly 10%. and my next guest is playing a crucial role in this effort -- both of them. dr. siegel is from george washington university, one of 90 locations where they're working on this and a participant in the trial who felt it was his public duty. thank you both, mark and mark, so much. >> dr. siegel, let me get an update from you, dr. siegel on where we are on getting an answer on the moderna vaccine. the way it works has never been taken to market successfully and tested this broadly before. pfizer's ceo said their vaccine, they should know by the end of october if it works or not. is the same going to be true for moderna, do you think? >> it really depends on how many people come down with symptomatic covid after they have received the second dose of their vaccine and that's really the primary end point is looking at the number of people and looking at the patients who come down with symptomatic coronavirus and then looking at which of those patients had the placebo, which had the vaccine. and seeing if there's a significant enough of a difference to know that the vaccine worked. so it depends on how soon people in the study become infected with coronavirus. >> yeah. mark, you felt a calling to do this, a public duty as sorts as you described it in "the washington post." you have friends who suffered from covid. where are you in this process and how are you feeling? >> well, thanks, poppy. 2020 will be remembered as the year of civic engagement. some will help the wildfires in the states and others will choose to help them being impacted by the hurricanes in the golf state. i'm one of 30,000 volunteers who want to end the pandemic. >> so how do you feel? i mean, have you gotten both shots, one shot? >> i received both shots. it's a double blind study so the participants don't know and the medical practitioners don't know what -- who got the shot or who got the placebo. >> you feel all right though? you look healthy. >> thank you. i'm happy to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants like former congressman lewis b. stokes from ohio who spent 30 years in washington trying to improve health care and advocating for minority health. and the former dean of the college of medicine at the university of maryland, donald wilson, who spent his entire career recruiting and training students to work as primary care practitioners. >> dr. siegel, participation from folks like mark is so important and you guys were the first, moderna's vaccine to slow down because if we don't have enough minority representation, blacks, latinos, et cetera, we won't know if this works for all of the populations especially those disproportionately and adversely affected by it. can you speak to where you are in terms of the representation? >> we are as a site, we were aiming to at least be enrolling 30% of people of color and we are above that. at over 50% enrolling people of color. and so we are encouraged by that we are encouraged by the willingness of people of color to participate in the study. study wide it's a significant improvement since the beginning of the study and we're seeing better representations. by the end of the study, the study should more accurately represent the demographics of the yet and therefore give people confidence it works for everybody and not just one specific subset of the population. >> well, mark, what do you say to your fellow black americans who do not trust this process and who do not given the history in this country, tuskegee, et cetera, have concerns? what is your message to them because one my favorite quotes of yours, mark, that i read is i trust science. >> and i do, poppy, and i would say that, you know, during the 40-year tuskegee syphilis experiment it took one brave person, teeter bucten, a social worker five years to expose the experiment. today it would take an hour on social media and of course with the help of mainstream media. people should understand our country is in a better position to safeguard their health care delivery now than any time in history. you have people who are researchers from santa barbara, california, to washington, d.c., that would never waste five years trying to expose a biomedical disaster like the tuskegee syphilis experiment. you know, people like dr. steven b. thomas who's in the public health school at the university of maryland, his scholarly contribution led to the apology by the president to the victims of the tuskegee experiment. >> it came decades later, but it was critical. before we go, dr. siegel, to you, pfizer's ceo i'm sure you watched the interview over the weekend, but he explained why pfizer is not taking government money for their vaccine work. they're spending $1.5 billion but moderna is taking money. he said, quote, i want to keep pfizer out of politics. should people be concerned that the government is working with you guys, for example, or do you believe that is advantageous? i just wonder what your reaction is to the words of him? >> i think it's advantageous. if the trial is shown to be effective we won't have to kuwait -- to wait months to a years for a vaccine to become available and that's because of the government funding of the study. so i think it's great. i think they're making sure that the studies are run scientifically and knowing that the vaccine works. so i think it's actually a win-win situation. we have science going on as it is usually is expected to do. but we have the funding to allow us to roll out and affect the vaccine if it's shown to be quicker quicker than we'd be able to do. >> dr. siegel, thank you, and thank you both. >> good to see that positive progress on a vaccine. ahead, the terrifying moments just after a gunman ambushed two los angeles county deputies. listen to this, how the quick actions of one saved her partner's life. we'll have the full story. after being a part of millions of love stories. ♪ at kay, we believe that nothing should get in the way of love. get zero down special financing with the long live love credit card, available at kay jewelers. ♪ a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealth management, your dedicated adviser can give you straightforward advice and tailored recommendations. that's the clarity you get with fidelity wealth management. we have new video out of los angeles. this is a story about those deputies ambushed. well, one los angeles county deputy trying to save her partner's life. this is after they had both been shot multiple times in this ambush. before we show it to you, we want to warn you these images are very disturbing so take a lock. can you see the 31-year-old deputy applying a tourniquet, look at that, a tourniquet to her 24-year-old partner's arm helping him to take cover behind a pillar. >> listen, she's doing all this while bleeding from a gunshot wound to her own face. i mean, that's courage in the line of duty. cnn's security correspondent josh campbell has the latest on their recovery and the manhunt for the shooter. first of all, they are recovering, right? they are going to make it through. tell us the latest and what we know, if anything, about the shooter. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, jim and poppy. they are recovering at this hour. they are out of surgery and still in critical condition. the sheriff says it's still unclear how this long-term impact might be on their health from the shooting, but they are expected to pull through. and as you mentioned, as we look at that new video, just an incredible act of heroism by these officers who were ambushed as they sat in their vehicle. again, a 31-year-old foe mail deputy is seen rendering aid to her partner, a 24-year-old man. as you mentioned, she had been shot in the face but had the wherewithal to try to save his life and call for help as this was all going down. the los angeles mayor coming out and just describing this as a complete kt a of heroism that we see on that video in the face of a complete tragedy. now the gunman in that incident is still being sought at this hour. a reward has been issued for $175,000. police are appealing to members of the public if they hve any information about that shooter. they want to hear from you. jim and poppy. >> just unbelievable, josh catch bell, thank you for that story. we're rooting for them and are glad they will make it through. thank you for that. jim? >> also, news of a multi-million dollar settlement in the shooting death of breonna taylor. a source tells cnn that the city of louisville will announce this afternoon that the government there has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with taylor's family. >> her family sued the city after she, just 26 years old and an emt, was shot and killed by police during a no-knock warrant in march. for months and months protesters really around the world have demanded that leaders say her name and arrest the three officers involved. we should note, jim, yes, this is a civil settlement, but still no arrests have been made and no charges have been brought, and it's now been almost five months. we'll be right back. all right. i think we all need some inspiration and something to smile about these days, so all this week in a special series called "champions for change," cnn highlights people making improvements in the world. they are change-maker. >> and this morning if you need a reason to smile, i do. we meet a young dutch inventor tackling an environmental crisis, removing trash from rivers and oceans. god knows we need it. ♪ >> and when i was 16 years old, i wanted to get my scuba diving license, and i was just really, really surprised because i just saw more plastic bags than fish and got me asking the relatively simple and benign question why can't we just clean this up? i would say i've been an inventor all my life really, and that kind of started something that got a bit out of hand. at the ocean cleanup, our mission is to rid the world's oceans of plastic. the ocean is very broad circulations of water masses, and over time these currents pick up the pieces of plastic and then they converge towards the great pacific patch between hawaii and california. the problem with plastics is huge, and what this young man has done is to waken us of this problem. >> we launched system 001 from the san francisco bay and headed to the great pacific garbage patch. we've put so much hope on catching plastic with that first system, and it didn't work, and it broke down. we're just learning to work. the plastic is within arm's reach literally. really the idea is to kind of accept that and to say, okay, we're going to make mistakes. i think within a few weeks at sea we learned more than years behind computers doing simulations. what we're trying to achieve has by definition never been done before. in about half a year, we were already out again in the great pacific garbage patch with system 1b where it was successful in capturing the plastic. we also need to stop new plastic from entering the oceans in the first play. our research has found that just 1% of rivers is responsible for 80% of all plastic that's entering the oceans around the world so by stopping plastic in rivers we hope to not only address the big global plastic pollution issue but also really help make life better for the people that live near these problematic rivers. >> they are saying that they don't fish here anymore, only downstream because here the water is so contaminated that they can't use the river anymore. >> the interceptor is a fully solar-powered, autonomous cleanup system which basically uses the current of the rivers to collect the plastic. >> quite satisfying. >> we have three interceptors cleaning rivers. one in indonesia, one in malaysia and one in the dominican republic. getting out tons of plastic every single day, and in parallel we brought the first plastic from the great pacific garbage patch back to shore to recycle into beautiful, sustainable products with which we then aim to fund the continuation of the cleanup. when we started out, i thought that perhaps the real problem wasn't technology but more public willingness to make something like this happen. i learned that that actually wasn't true, that people do really care. honestly this has been hugely humbling and inspiring to see the amount of people that are behind us and count on us to succeed. >> well, lord, let's hope that makes a difference. god knows the planet needs it. we will continue to share these inspirational stories all week. be sure to watch "champions for change," a one-hour special this saturday night at 10:00 eastern time only on cnn. >> all right. everyone. it's the top of the hour. 10:00 eastern and 7:00