down. so can you imagine being in the middle of an earthquake with 30 aftershocks and with all lights out. >> and the thing about the power plants, we've got a news alert that a nuclear power plant is in trouble right now. there's been an escape of emergency declared. there's a cooling system failure. there's no electricity to cool the core. no radiation leaks at this point. but nonetheless, japan is a nation that gets a lot of its electricity from atomic power and if they can't cool down the core, that's going to be a problem. >> and brian just mentioned a few moments ago, the president has put out a statement just issuing a statement within the last few minutes and our own peter doocy is live in washington with all of those details. good morning. >> good morning, gretchen, and we're hearing now that the president was told about the earthquake and then the resulting tsunami by his chief of staff, bill daley at about 4:00 this morning and in the last few minutes, you just heard some of it. the white house through a spokesman did put out a statement and it reads in part