the cataclysmic earthquake that most experts say is almost certain to happen, although no one can predict exactly where or when. john blackstone will be reporting our sunday morning cover story. >> reporter: in california the statewide earthquake drill known as the great shakeout took on extra urgency this year. and not just because of recent big quakes in haiti, chile and china. >> the san andreas fault is locked and loaded and ready to rumble. >> reporter: california braces for the big one later on sunday morning. >> osgood: julie and david are two people from two first families. together they formed the union that stood the test of time. mo rocca this morning they'll be looking back. >> here is the bride. >> reporter: when david eisenhower married julie nixon, it was the union of two of the most famous political names of the 20th century. >> i felt like i was on her side. i think she felt she was on my side. right away. automatically. >> reporter: now they've written a book about david's grandfather dwight david eisenhower. later on sunday morning, when granddad is a five-star general and two-term president. >> osgood: the eisenhower administration was still a quite recent memory when keith richards first started making music with the rolling stones. all these years later keith richards is still gathering no moss and talking this morning with our anthony mason about his amazing life and high times. >> it's a fascinating thing, this life. ♪ time is on my side > keith richards' bucaneering life has made him rock's archetypal outlaw. for nearly 50 years he's been a rolling stone and mick jagger's side kick. how would you describe your professional partnership? >> i've never considered myself or him professional quite honestly. >> reporter: at home with keith. the man and the myth. later on sunday morning. >> osgood: everybody in the world has a story. this morning our steve hartman will be proving that again and again and again. >> lift-off. >> reporter: it started as this crazy idea. we thought, wouldn't it be neat if we could get nasa to fly an inflatable globe into space, which they did, and then got an astronaut to spin the globe and point to some random places which he did. and then went to those places and tried to interview picked randomly from the phone book. which i did. would those people think we were nuts? or would they tell usth stories? the answer is both. >> at first i thought it was a prank call. >> reporter: i'll show you the remarkable earthlings i found purely by chance all throughout this sunday morning. >> osgood: we'll have those reports and more but first here are the headlines for this sunday morning the 24th of october, 2010. health workers are struggling to keep up with a widening cholera outbreak in haiti. more than 200 people have died. nearly 3,000 others have been infected. the epidemic has now spread to the capital port-au-prince. even as the pentagon condemns the release of a huge cache of secret iraq war logs, we're learning more about the disclosures and one of the most disturbing is about the human toll to innocent iraqis. here's national security correspondent david martin. >> reporter: the iraq war logs are written in dispassionate military jargon, but they tell a heart-wrenching story. >> almost every log tells a story. far too often this is a previously unknown story of human suffering and death. >> reporter: this man runs an organization called iraq body count which has tried to keep track of all the deaths. the wikileaks documents are his best hope for a full accounting. >> we estimate when fully analyzed these logs will bring to public knowledge more than 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths. >> reporter: by his count 150,000 people have been killed in iraq since 2003. 80% of them civilians. the wikileaks documents will enable him to attach names to those numbers. >> we already found over 100 previously reported civilian victim names in the logs we've examined. we estimate that many thousands more will be discovered as analysis proceeds. >> reporter: that, he says, would give victims of this war the proper recognition they deserve. for sunday morning, this is david martin at the pentagon. >> osgood: in the baseball play-offs the san francisco giants are national league champions after defeating the phillies in philadelphia last night 3-2. the giants will host the first game of the world series wednesday night against the american league pennant-winning texas rangers. and a social note from india. pop singer katy perry and british comedian rustle brand have tied the knot there. they were wed yesterday at a tying every reserve. an event that included a procession of 21 camels, elephants and horses. their wedding celebration is expected to last six days. these days some marriages don't last that long. here's the day's weather across the country. storms will roll eastward from the plains. more rain will fall in the northwest. the days ahead promise typical late october weather. some showers, some sun, and the days are getting shorter and cooler. ahead, keith richards on life as a rolling stone. >> how would you describe your professional partnership? >> i've never considered myself or him professional quite honestly. >> reporter: (laughing). >> osgood: but first bracing for the big one in california.,, [ ehrlich ] four years ago unemployment in maryland was under four percent. today, it's nearly double. and nearly a quarter of a million marylanders are looking for work. in addition, we face a national health care plan that will hurt small business and cost us jobs. so we have to ask, are you better off today than you were four years ago? we're heading in the wrong direction. we need strong leadership. say no to things we can't afford. fix our health care plan. and refuse to raise taxes. martin o'malley can't do it. i will. the big one is california shorthand for a most powerful earthquake. it can be predicted with certainty but not much precision. therefore, it can only be prepared for imprecisely. our sunday morning cover story is reported now by john blackstone. >> this is an earthquake drill. >> reporter: on thursday, millions of people in california took shelter under tables and desks, protecting themselves from an earthquake, an imaginary earthquake. >> we're going to get this taken care of, okay. >> reporter: in this annual drill called the great california shakeout, californians practice responding to the injuries and destruction that are certain when the big one hits. officials like san francisco's mayor gavin newsome say it's a civic duty to be prepared. >> look, if you're going to move out to california on the west coast, you're going to live not just in one earthquake zone but three, you've got to take that seriously. you have an obligation to take it seriously. >> reporter: the seriousness of earthquakes has been obvious this year. tragically obvious. the magnitude 7.0 quake that destroyed so much of haiti in january was one of the deadliest ever, killing more than 220,000 people. a month later one of the most powerful earthquakes in a century, a magnitude 8.8 hit chile. better building standards limited the damage. still, 370,000 homes were destroyed and at least 520 people killed. in april, a 6.9 damaged 15,000 buildings in southern china and killed 2700 people. >> this has been a busy year by any standard. >> reporter: professor of geo physics at cal tech says where a quake hits could be at least as significant as how big it is. closest california got to a notable quake this year is the 7.2 that rocked mexico's baja peninsula in april. >> if you took that same earthquake and moved it to, say, into an urban area, we'd still be talking about earthquakes in california. it would have been a very damaging event. but it was in the middle of the desert. >> reporter: for those concerned about keeping californians earthquake ready, it might be said that nothing could be finer than an earthquake that is minor, a little rattle now and then keeps people on their toes. the trouble is, california's been unusually stable recently. experts are certain that won't last. >> basically the san andreas fault is locked and loaded and ready to rumble. >> reporter: thomas jordan is director of the southern california earthquake center. >> as a seismologist, of course, the longer we go without a big earthquake, the more nervous i get. because i know that over time we have to have earthquakes to relieve all of that energy that's being built up along the plate boundary. >> reporter: new calculations on the san andreas near los angeles show major quakes happen there more frequently than previously believed. and the next one could be as big as magnitude 8.0. >> the fact we haven't had an earthquake in this region for so long means our time is getting due. >> reporter: the most recent big quake in los angeles was the 1994 northridge quake. 57 people died. >> we're having an aftershock right now, people. >> it was the largest natural disaster before katrina that had country had ever seen. $40 billion in direct economic damage. >> reporter: it was a magnitude 6.7. and the kind of math that only seismologists fully understand, a magnitude 8 quake would be many times more powerful. >> it's hard to imagine but the big one that they're talking about would be something like 40, 50 times as destructive as the northridge quake. for anyone who has lived through the northridge quake that's an unimaginable kind of circumstance. >> reporter: this author wrote about how californians cope with earthquake in the myth of solid ground. >> people probably either get very scared or just sort of write it off which seems to be the two poles of psychological responses to these things. either they terrify you or you live in denial. >> reporter: in a magnitude 8 earthquake the shaking could last for a full minute. to appreciate what that could mean, consider the damage caused in the 15 seconds the ground shook in the san francisco bay area in 1989. >> 15 seconds and you can see what happened. >> reporter: at an oakland california park bill as a memorial to the '9 quake, david swartz of the u.s. geo logical survey remembers that for all the destruction, the epicenter of that quake was far away. >> 1989 was 70 miles south of the bay area proper. we think our mex big earthquake will occur right in the middle of the urban center. if you look at it that way, there are hills, the heyward fault runs at the base of the hills. >> reporter: the heyward fault is overdue. add the san andreas and a startling number of lesser known faults and the san francisco region is ripe for quakes. >> we're surrounded by faults. anywhere you go in the bay area. we jokingly like to say you can run but you can't hide. that's sort of the truth. >> reporter: the san andreas fault brought on the great san francisco earthquake of 1906. the violent shaking knocked down almost everything standing. the fire that followed ruined much of what was left. it's been estimated that 3,000 people died. that's the kind of quake, much bigger, much more destructive than the one in 1989, that seismologist figure could be on its way. >> we've estimated in the next 30 years a 63% chance, two out of three, that we'll have one or more magnitude 6, 7 or larger earthquakes. >> reporter: while earthquake sign tiffs can make estimates, what they can't do is make predictions. >> at one point people were very optimistic that we would come up with some systems to predict the earthquakes. the more we've studied the problem, the more we realize that it's a false hope. >> reporter: once the earth has started moving, scientists may be able to send an alert that shock waves are on the way. >> we call it earthquake early warning. it's based on the fact that earthquakes take a certain time to occur. they propagate along a fault. here in california we could get up to one minute of warning of a major earthquake on the san andreas fault before it was to shake downtown los angeles. >> it turns out almost all of our smart phones have got sis mom ters in them. >> reporter: scientists working on an early warning system hope one to day there's an app for that. >> if we can take the information from the smart phones and assemble it and send it back to some central place, then not only is your smart phone telling you what's coming but it's telling us what's happening where you are. >> reporter: a few seconds of warning is good. years of preparation better. in the past two decades, california has taken the lessons learned in the san francisco and northridge quakes to prepare for what could come next. >> the transportation system, the water pipelines crossing the faults. the bridges have been retrofited except for the bay bridge. not quite finished yet. >> reporter: the collapse of the bay bridge in the 1989 quake made it a symbol of the state's vulnerable infrastructure. the replacement bridge scheduled for completion in 2013 includes innovations designed to allow it to bend and swing and rock in a major earthquake. but its earthquake readiness comes at a cost. more than $6 billion. but as californians practice for the big one, it might be worth considering not just what earthquakes cost california but what they have given california. the promise that it's a place where the past can be wiped away and everything can start anew. >> osgood: next, roll out the barrel. a breeze ♪' ♪ that's logistics ♪ ♪ a-di-os, cheerio, au revoir ♪ ♪ off it goes, that's logistics ♪ ♪ over seas, over land, on the web, on demand ♪ ♪ that's logistics ♪ ♪ operations worldwide, ups on your side ♪ ♪ that's logistics ♪ hey, babe. oh, hi, honey! so i went to the doctor today, then picked up a few extra things for the baby. oh, boy... i used our slate card with blueprint. we can design our own plan to avoid interest by paying off diapers and things each month. and for the bigger stuff, we can pay down our balance faster to save money on interest. bigger? bigger. slate from chase gives you extraordinary control over how you pay for life's surprises. trip...lets... slate customers pay down their balances twice as fast with blueprint. the new healthcare law gives us powerful new tools to fight it.... to investigate it... prosecute it... and stop criminals. our senior medicare patrol volunteers... are teaching seniors across the country... ...to stop, spot, and report fraud. you can help. guard your medicare card. don't give out your card number over the phone. call to report any suspected fraud. we're cracking down on medicare fraud. let's make medicare stronger for all of us. >> and now a page from our sunday morning almanac. october 24, 1901. 109 years ago today. the day daring trumped common sense. for that was the day annie taylor became the first person to go over niagara falls in a barrel. with its drop of 170 feet and its ferocious flow of 600,000 gallons per second, you might think the perils of canada's horse shoe falls would be obvious but that would be to underestimate annie taylor. a 63-year-old retired school teacher with a cat as her travel companion annie taylor set sail in her heavily padded barrel and miraculously survived suffering only a few bruises. i would caution anyone against attempting the feat she said afterwards. i would sooner walk up to the moun... the mount of a can non-knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the falls. would that others had followed her advice. in the years that followed at least 16 people are known to have attempted the feat. 11 survived. five did not. >> george is waving his last good-bye to the world which he will never see again. >> osgood: news reel cameras captured this 1930s attempt by george and his 105-year-old pet turtle. >> closer and closer he comes to the brink of the cataract. a long moment and he's over. the ride of death. >> reporter: he survived the fall. but suffocated inside his sealed barrel. the turtle survived. in 1990 jesse sharp attempted the plunge in a kayak. >> i called to my wife and said there's someone in a kayak out by the barge. i thought it was strange. he went right over the edge. >> reporter: the kayak was recovered. jesse sharp's body never was. seven years ago kurt jones of michigan went over with no sort of vessel or protective gear at all. somehow he survived with only bumps and bruises. >> i'm going to suggest he was probably happy to be alive. >> reporter: kurt jones was fined $2300 and banned from canada for life. which underscores a very important point. niagara stunts are against the law. punishable by up to a $10,000 as if one look at those falls wouldn't be disincentive enough. >> osgood: next, the right stuff. it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. and celebrex is not a narcotic. when it comes to relieving your arthritis pain, you and your doctor need to balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, including celebrex, may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease or risk factors such as high blood pressure or when nsaids are taken for long periods. nsaids, including celebrex, increase the chance of serious skin or allergic reactions or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, which can occur without warning and may cause death. patients also taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers. do not take celebrex if you've had an asthma attack, hives, or other allergies to aspirin, nsaids or sulfonamides. get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. tell your doctor about your medical history and find an arthritis treatment that works for you. ask your doctor about celebrex. and, go to celebrex.com to learn more about how you can move toward relief. celebrex. for a body in motion. for the benefit of our younger viewers, these are fountain pens. yes, fountain pens. each of these particular fountain pens is worth about $5,000. they're classic writing devices that need no downloaded software to function. just a manual dexterity and a lot of tender loving care. with rit a blafer now we'll see a master at work. >> when i'm repairing grandfather's or grandmother's pen, i'm basically giving back a piece of their heritage to the owners. >> reporter: richard bender is known as "the pen doctor." >> you can see the ink there. >> reporter: once a developer of high-tech computer software, he now rescues low-tech tools of communication. working in his new hampshire studio. >> and if you look at this, it's better. the pen was probably dropped and came down on a desk or a floor like that. >> reporter: his specialty is the nib or the point which governs how a pen writes. >> fortunately this kind of thing isn't difficult to repair. >> reporter: not for him. no wonder he has a four-month backlog of work. turns out there aren't being nib doctors. so you're one of a few. >> i'm one of perhaps a half dozen in the world. >> what do you have? >> i have a bexley fine point. it's too broad and wet. >> reporter: though you may have never heard of him, he's a celebrity in the world of pens. yes, in this age of texting and email and throw-away ball points, there is a world of fountain pens. >> you can put so much care into your signature with a fountain pen that you can with a ball point. >> reporter: all on di