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This is still an active rescue scene. if you any loved ones involved, the number of people on the ground they are in this rescue operation is unbelievable. pictures coming and have been unbelievable. amtrak 501, still waiting to hear what the number of casualties may be, fatalities may be. we do know -- >> kennedy: we don't want to speculate at this point but you know for certain that the amount of coordination required as john hiatt was telling us to stabilize those trains and how difficult that must be from an engineering perspective and also not just the trains but making sure no other cars...

I think what we need to do, carol, we need to separate the above-surface search with the plethora of maritime assets used over the past days from the subsurface because they're very different. the airborne search has been operating at tempos and search tempos that are unsustainable. and they're unsustainable from an air group perspective in terms of the fatigue and the human factor side. and they're unsustainable from the engineering perspective. so the physicality, of having to service all of the aircraft that's been going for 47 days now. and that's unprecedented really in maritime searches....

Seeing. again, we'll give the river what it needs. we'll continue to take as much off the top that we can afford to do. >> heather: amazing pictures as we've seen this unfold. was there any alternative? i read if you had not done this, this disaster would have been worst than katrina in terms of affecting new orleans? >> we have lots of scenarios that we run for planning. my staff briefed me on different options. there's no doubt this was the best course of action this is consistent with our manuals. consistent with operating this as a system from the ohio river valley, missouri, down to the m...

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com hello. you're in the cnn newsroom this saturday, may 14th, i'm fredricka whitfield. saving two of louisiana's biggest cities at the sacrifice of flooding homes and farmland. that's what will likely happen as the u.s. army corps of engineers opens the morganza spillway beginning an hour from now. while opening the gaelts would slowly divert floodwaters from baton rouge and new orleans, areas in yellow could get up to 20 feet of water, in green up to 15 feet. the morganza spillway hasn't been opened in nearly 40 years. but for the u.s. army corps...

>> there's a slow opening for a lot of reasons. one is from an engineering perspective. the water will come out of here pretty quickly. you don't want to scour the back side of this structure. from an environmental perspective, ofb yous think there are lots of bear and other wildlife. we want to make sure they have the opportunity to get to higher ground. last but most importantly, from a human perspective, we want to make sure folks have the understanding that water is coming their way and they need to evacuate in accordance with their local evacuation policies and procedures. >> our ed lavan...