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ORLI) NEWS
PAGE 4 FEBRUARY 4 2000 THE BEHREND BEACON
Winter arrives in southeastern U.S.
A region ripped by floods is hit anew
by Anna Griffin
Knight-Ridder Tribune
January 26, 2000
RALEIGH, N.C. A year of bizarre,
tragic weather turned ev en stranger
Tuesday, January 25, as close to 20
inches of snow covered Eastern North
Carolina, leaving millions of people
trapped in their homes and hundreds
of thousands without power.
State and local emergency officials
reported hundreds of car accidents
and one N.C. death, a traffic fatality.
Authorities say it could he days he
fore they're able to reach everyone
in need or to compile a complete list
of injuries. Gov. Jim Hunt declared
a state of emergency and urged people
to stay indoors.
Most residents in this part of the
state followed his advice Tuesday
either because their businesses and
schools were dosed or because they
simply couldn't get out of their sum\ -
clogged drip eways.
Emergency officials, caught by sur
prise, tried desperately to identity and
reach those most in need, such as eld
erly in need of medicine and preg
nant women close to going into la
bor. But even ambulances and fire
trucks had trouble cutting through the
snowdrifts, two-feet-high on some
back roads.
Meteorologists said up to tour
inches of snow was falling each hour
in the Sandhills on Tuesday morning.
In the Triangle, which got 22 inches
in the deepest spots, snow began fall
ing Monday night, Jan. 24, and didn't
end until after 3 p.m. Tuesday. Most
Special
Branch
by Lee Hancock
Knight-Ridder Tribune
January 28. 2000
DALLAS -- The Waco special
counsel's office asked a federal judge
Thursday, January 27, for permission
to perform independent testing on tape
recordings made from 1:131 surveillance
devices on the crucial last day of the
1993 Branch Davidian siege.
The tests could help resolve whether
the tapes now being held by the fed
eral court in Waco are originals or al
tered copies a concern raised last
year by a recording expert hired by
lawyers for the sect.
An independent analysis also might
help address the question of what could
be heard as the devices broadcast to
an FBI command post on April 19,
1993, the day that the Branch Davidian
compound near Waco burned with
leader David Koresh and more than &)
followers inside.
One FBI agent who helped monitor
the bugs said in a deposition last month
that little or nothing could be discerned
from the surveillance devices during
the last hours of the siege because of
poor transmission quality and back
ground noise.
But a retired Army colonel who was
in the FBl's command post as a mili
tary liaison that day told The Dallas
Morning News last fall that he clearly
heard voices of Davidians being broad
cast by the hugs, including discussions
in which the sect members talked about
spreading fuel and setting fires.
The former colonel, Rodney
Rawlings of Austin, was questioned
schools and many businesses planned
to stay closed again Wednesday, Jan.
26. Temperatures were expected to
"Right now, the
only cars on the
road are Humvees
from Fort Bragg.
Even our fire
trucks can't get
through,"
drop overnight, icing highways again.
"Right now, the only cars on the
road are Humvees from Fort Bragg.
Even our lire trucks can't get
through. - said David Puckett, a para
medic in Moore County.
Moore County. left completely
ithout pow er by 7 a.m. Tuesday,
didn't prepare emergency shelters be
cause only about five inches of snow
was predicted. Parts of the mostly
rural county got between 15 and 17
inches, and several nursing homes
sere left without power or heat.
Moore Regional Hospital had power,
hut lost its water service.
counsel seeks tests on
Davidian recording
last November by the independent
counsel's office and has also been in-
terviewed by congressional investiga-
Nil officials have long insisted that
they could nut hear anything from the
surveillance devices on April 19 and
have said they did not learn about the
sect's fire discussions until weeks later
when recordings from the bugs were
enhanced. But the federal prosecutor
who directed the criminal trial of sur
viving Branch Davidians told Con
gress in 1995 that he could clearly hear
those conversations the first time he
listened to the raw, original tapes.
The FBI commander who oversaw
the operation told Congress that he
would have stopped the FBl's assault
of the compound with tanks and tear
gas if he had known about the sect's
talk of spreading fuel and other prepa
rations for setting a fire.
Government arson investigators
ruled that sect members set the com
pound tire, but the Davidians' pend
ing wrongful death lawsuit alleges that
government negligence and missteps
caused the tragedy.
Thursday's filing seeks custody of
seven surveillance tape recordings
made on April 19 for 60 days of "in
dependent tests" and expert reviews.
The tapes have been in court cus
tody in Waco since last fall, after U.S.
District Judge Walter Smith ordered
the turnover of all original government
documents, recordings, and other evi
dence relating to the 1993 tragedy.
Government lawyers told the court
that the surveillance tapes sent to Waco
from FBI headquarters were originals.
-David Puckett,
paramedic in
Moore County
"We had no idea this was coming,"
Puckett said. "We were caught com
pletely off guard." State emergency
officials estimated that close to
300,000 customers of CP&L and ru
ral electrical co-operatives lost power.
For those utilities, the worst of the
storm hit the Interstate 85 corridor
and Sandhills counties such as Mont
gomery, Moore, and Richmond.
Because of heavy snow along 1-40,
Raleigh was virtually cut off from the
rest of the state. Counties as far
southeast as Onslow, outside
Wilmington, and as far north as
Halifax, near the Virginia border,
were reporting more than half a foot
of snow.
"Everything is shut down. Noth
ing is open, - said Cliff Trenton,
owner of the Yellow Car Taxi Co. in
Fayetteville.
"We tried staying open, but none
of our drivers could get anywhere.
We've got four cabs out there wait
ing for tow trucks. I think it may be
a day or two before they get around
to towing them away."
For Eastern North Carolina, just
four months removed from the terror
of Hurricane Floyd, which killed 51
people, the storm was another re
minder that Mother Nature can strike
in a myriad of ways.
Minor flooding was expected as
snow began to melt. The Neuse River
was at 11 feet in Goldsboro Tuesday
afternoon, Jan 25, and was expected
to crest at 16 feet Thursday, Jan. 27,
two feet above its flood level. Most
counties reported at least a few
Supplies put away for Y2K find use
by Diane Suchetka
Knight-Ridder Tribune
January 26, 2000
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- You
laughed at them when they stocked
up for the Y2K disaster. You made
fun of their millennium cupboards
full of food, ridiculed their gallons
of water, howled when they lugged
generators home. But guess who's
laughing last?
All those families who were ready
for the end-of-the-millennium ca
tastrophe that never happened put
their feet up last week when the
worst winter storm in years knocked
out power and most of the South
east for a loop.
But a former U.S. Secret Service sci
entist hired by lawyers for the
Davidians began examining those re
cordings in Waco late last year and is
sued a preliminary finding that the sur
veillance tapes from April 19 did not
appear to be originals.
Mike Caddell, lead lawyer for the
sect, said the expert found evidence
that the tapes from that day were re
corded in stereo, while bugging de
vices typically used by U.S. police
agencies transmit their signals in a
single monaural or "mono" channel.
He said the expert also found suspi
cious signs of cutouts or editing on
some of the tapes.
An FBI agent who helped supervise
the bureau's bugging system in Waco,
an electronic surveillance program
dubbed "Trojan Horse," said in a De
cember deposition that all of the FBI
bugging transmissions in Waco were
sent and recorded in mono.
"They were all to my knowledge,
monaural," said the now-retired agent,
who described himself as "Trojan
Horse coordinator." "Since we had
only two telephone lines, if we tried to
send, you know, stereo down, we
would have doubled the number of
telephone lines we needed, so that we
wouldn't have wanted to do that."
Last week, the special counsel's of
fice asked to conduct independent toxi
cology tests on tissue samples from the
Davidians killed in the 1993 standoff.
They have previously sought custody
of bullet shell casings found in a sniper
post manned by the FBI during the
siege and of the FBl's infrared video
tapes shot April 19 for scientific tests.
downed trees and power lines, though
property damage wasn't predicted to
be severe.
"This hasn't been our best year,"
said Eric Tolbert, N.C. Emergency
Services director, Tolbert said. "You
sort of start to wonder what comes
In Raleigh, city crews began plow
ing on Monday, Jan. 24. Twelve
hours and several plowings later, the
only traffic was on foot graduate
students Gretchen and Chris Cooke
were walking their German shepherd.
Cougar was the only one who
seemed happy to be outdoors his
human owners both had scarves
clamped to their mouths and several
layers of clothes on. The wind, which
peaked at about 30 miles an hour in
the Triangle, sent a steady, painful
spray of snow blowing across the
road.
"This is so dumb," Gretchen Cooke
said. "We thought it would be nice
out here, playing in the snow and all
that. But nobody should be out in
this."
More than 200 National Guard
troops were mobilized to help clear
roads, restore power and assist medi
cal crews, but many were having
trouble getting to their assigned posts.
Most hospitals were being staffed
with doctors and nurses who'd
worked the night before. Duke Uni
versity Medical Center's emergency
room was near-empty Tuesday after
noon, in part, doctors said, because
ambulances were having trouble get
ting through.
While cars crawled along icy
roads to get to the store for bread
and mills and people rummaged
through kitchen drawers for a flash
light with batteries that worked
while cursing the power failure, all
those people who prepared for New
Year's trouble relaxed and opened
up another can of stockpiled soup.
"We could enjoy the whole thing
and not worry,' said Bonnie
Wallace, 33, who lost power for
eight hours Sunday, Jan. 23.
"We didn't have to worry, 'Do we
have candles?' Do we have bat
teries'?' How are we going to
cook?' How are we going to stay
warm?' It was very comforting to
know that we had all those things
Microsoft ignoring court rulings
by James V. Grimaldi
Knight-Ridder Tribune
January 26, 2000
WASHINGTON Even a blizzard
that shut down the federal courts
didn't stop the Microsoft antitrust
battle from moving forward Tuesday,
January 25, as the Department of Jus
tice and 19 states accused the soft
ware giant of ignoring the law, the
facts, and the court's findings.
"Microsoft treats as nearly an af
terthought both the court's core find
ing that Microsoft has monopoly
power and the unifying theme of the
court's numerous findings on
Microsoft's conduct," government
lawyers said.
The argument was part of a brief
filed in a courthouse closed by more
than a foot of snow. It came in reply
to Microsoft's contention, filed last
week, that the company did not break
federal antitrust law.
Even as the paper war heads to
ward final arguments next month,
some dissension arose in government
ranks over remedies, should
Microsoft lose the case.
Reports surrounding the trial have
said government officials are in
agreement that breaking up Microsoft
was the appropriate way to restore
competition to the computer indus
try. But Betty Montgomery, attorney
general of Ohio, is leaning against a
"structural remedy," adding it is too
soon to decide remedies, said her
spokesman, Todd Boyer.
Since reports emerged that the Jus
tice Department and the states sup
ported a breakup, some officials close
to the government's case have em
phasized the decision was not final.
School buses sit covered with snow at a school in Union County,
N.C. The largest snowstorm in 72 years has paralyzed the commu
nity, forcing schools throughout the region to cancel classes.
Hospitals and nursing homes were
seeking volunteers with four-wheel
drive vehicles to help ferry in doc
tors and patients. Everyone else was
encouraged to stay indoors, keep
in place," said Wallace who lives in
York, S.C., with her husband and
four children.
"We knew we didn't have to go
to a relatives' house, we didn't have
to pack the children up, we didn't
have to get out on the roads with
them."
Instead, she said, they just en
joyed the weather. They cooked hot
dogs and hot chocolate on their out
door grill. They roasted marshmal
lows over the fireplace. They
lobbed snowballs at each other and
built snowmen and took long walks
together as the feathery flakes
drifted down from the clouds.
"They kind of laughed at us when
nothin happened," said Loretta
At the same time, Microsoft has
mounted a vigorous public defense
against breaking up the company and
is expected to make a similar case be
hind the closed doors of a mediation
effort to settle the case.
In a letter to The Seattle Times,
spokesman Mark Murray argued that
"there is absolutely no precedent for
the radical notion that Microsoft
should be broken up, even if the court
rules against the company. Over the
past 100 years, there is no case in
which the government has ever bro
ken up an operating company, no
matter how severe the antitrust vio
lation."
Murray argued that Standard Oil
and AT&T each broken up after
being subjected to antitrust scrutiny
were "trusts or umbrella holding
companies that had been assembled
from previously stand-alone compa
nies." Intellectual-property compa
nies cannot be divided along geo
graphical lines, he suggested.
William Kovacic, a George Wash
ington University law professor and
expert in antitrust enforcement, said
that while such an argument has some
merit, it isn't unique to Microsoft.
The parallels to Standard Oil are
stronger than Murray claims,
Kovacic said.
"That really understates the degree
of integration that had taken place in
the Standard Oil family itself,"
Kovacic said. "When you look at
Standard Oil, you see Standard rep
resentatives saying: 'lf you require
the [breakup], you will tear apart in
tegrated operations, whose success
depends separately on other pieces of
the Standard family. —
Meanwhile, the arguments being
warm, and remain patient.
"The next few days are going to be
difficult," said Durham Mayor Nick
Tennyson. "This is not a one-day
problem.-
Tuttle, 39, who lives on the south
ern edge of Mecklenburg County
and . had prepared for Y2K.
When her electricity went out this
week, Tuttle and her husband, Perry,
lit their emergency candles, then
dragged out sleeping bags, a camp
stove and their new generator.
They were ready to keep life go
ing as usual for their five children
just as their power returned.
"You're relieved when you're
prepared and you're not in a panic
state," Loretta Tuttle said. "Now
my first thought is, 'Who can I
help?'
"I think that's one of the things
the whole Y2K scare brought out
the humanity in all of us."
made in mediation sessions in Chi-
cago remain secret. No meetings
were scheduled last week.
As those talks continue, both sides
are busy filing their final rounds of
briefs before final arguments on the
law are made Feb. 22. Those argu
ments follow findings by U.S. Dis
trict Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
that Microsoft had engaged in a pat
tern of activities that hurt consumers,
harmed competitors, and stymied in
novation.
In their filing Tuesday, Jan. 25,
government lawyers argued that
Microsoft's brief last week set up and
knocked down straw men and applied
"to this case out-of-context passages
from decisions involving patently dif
ferent market circumstances."
In particular, the government brief,
written by U.S. Department of Jus
tice attorneys and signed by a Wis
consin state lawyer on behalf of 19
states, argued Microsoft evades
Jackson's finding that Microsoft has
monopoly power.
The government also said
Microsoft ignored the ruling that it
had used its power in "a multi-front
campaign, using a broad array of anti
competitive tactics that reduced
rather than enhanced consumer
choice to sustain the critical barrier
to entry protecting monopoly power."
Murray said it is the government
that is denying reality.
"The government is both misread
ing the law and misrepresenting the
facts of our industry," Murray said.
"This is an intensely competitive in
dustry, and it is only getting more
competitive."