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COY WIRE: Hey, everyone.
It's your boy, Coy, coming to you from Super Bowl Radio
Row here in Phoenix, Arizona, ahead of Sunday's big game
between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
We have a great show for you today,
but not a lot of time to do it.
So let's get to it.
Now, we do have to start with some sad news out of Turkey
and Syria, an update on the earthquake we told
you about earlier this week.
The death toll from the devastating earthquake
in Turkey and Syria continues to rise,
with upwards of 11,000 people dead when we recorded our show.
Additionally, aid agencies and experts
warn that time is running out to help
rescue people stuck in the rubble who may still be alive.
In addition, tens of thousands of people have been injured.
The earthquake, with a 7.8 magnitude,
struck Turkey and neighboring Syria on Monday.
The quake is one of the strongest
to hit the region in more than 100 years.
Additionally, rescuers have faced
shortages of trucks, fuel, and time
to deliver aid to impacted areas.
Thousands of buildings collapsed, and aid agencies
are particularly worried about northwestern Syria, where
more than 4 million people were already relying
on humanitarian assistance.
To make matters worse, freezing weather conditions
are further endangering survivors and complicating
rescue efforts, as more than 100 aftershocks
have struck the region.
We'll hear now from CNN correspondent Salma Abdelaziz,
who is joining us from Istanbul to describe
the efforts of survivors in what's happening
currently in the region.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ: We're at a buzzing aid distribution center
here in the center of Istanbul.
There are hundreds of volunteers, municipal workers,
all here to try and help those the earthquake zone.
You can see them right here.
They're packing food.
Everything you're looking at here
has been donated by individuals, by families,
by businesses, donations that people want to see
go to that affected area.
So they're packing these boxes really with the basics.
I want to show you.
Here we've got diapers, clothes, juice boxes for kids.
I mean, anything you can imagine.
Mostly, of course, non-medical aid here.
Just individuals and businesses doing what they can.
Of course, Turkey is receiving help from dozens of countries.
I think over 70 countries have pledged help to Turkey,
but there is a sense that Turks want to help each other.
Real community spirit here.
Volunteers tell us they've been able already
to send dozens of trucks, tons of aid,
and it just keeps coming.
An absolutely humongous catastrophe.
The scope and scale of it, almost
incomprehensible, and so there's never be enough of this help.
COY WIRE: 10-second trivia.
Which of these US government agencies
forecasts weather and monitors ocean conditions?
FAA, NASA, NOAA, or DOJ?
[TIMER BEEPING]
These duties fall under the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, known as NOAA.
Now, part of the mission of NOAA is to better understand storms
and the potential impact they may have when they make
landfall, and one way NOAA pilots collect
data is by flying over hurricanes and sometimes
directly into them with specially equipped aircraft
through their Hurricane Hunter program.
Fasten your seat belts, y'all.
This could get bumpy.
Time to learn some more as we go navigate some unfriendly skies
above the storm.
[PLANE WHOOSHING]
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
DANIELLE VARWIG: Flying over a hurricane, it's otherworldly.
It gives me a little bit of euphoria.
Pilots are taught to not fly near these things,
and here I am, flying at 45,000 feet above it
all for the sake of national safety.
- Former US Air Force pilot Lieutenant Commander Danielle
Varwig is a Hurricane Hunter pilot
for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Of course, I get nervous before every flight.
- NOAA pilots like Varwig fly over and into storms
and hurricanes across the Western Atlantic, Caribbean,
and the Gulf of Mexico, collecting weather data
to help forecast where and when these events
will make landfall.
DANIELLE VARWIG: Most of the time, we're in the clouds,
and now we're trusting our instruments
and trusting our flight directors on board with us
to navigate around it.
- Flight director Nikki Hathaway is often by her side,
using radar data to help the pilots
navigate through the storm.
NIKKI HATHAWAY: Yeah, it's a bumpy ride.
I would say if you are not a fan of roller coasters,
it's probably not the job for you.
Essentially, on this aircraft, it's a flying science lab.
The data that we're collecting on board,
essentially, goes back down to the National Hurricane Center
and a variety of other researchers,
and this data is being used real time
to make life-saving decisions, impacting
the people on the ground potentially in harm's way.
- That data helps protect millions of people
across North and Central America and the Caribbean.
NIKKI HATHAWAY: You're always thinking about those people
in harm's way, and when it is your people, you know,
when it's impacting your home, there's
that extra element of just, like, stress
in the back of your head.
But it's really important to compartmentalize those feelings
to get the job done.
- Neither Varwig nor Hathaway flew this season,
but over the past couple of years,
they've been deployed for days, weeks, sometimes months
at a time.
DANIELLE VARWIG: It is hard to be away from my kids.
The one thing that pushes me through dealing
with the separation from my family
is the fact that I am serving my country.
- That mission to serve, to keep others safe
come hail or shine is what sets these women apart.
DANIELLE VARWIG: I want to put myself out there, if anything,
to be a role model to little girls, little Black girls.
I want to make sure that others can look to me
and say, OK, well, she's doing it.
Then I can, too.
COY WIRE: All right, sports history was made Tuesday night
when Los Angeles Lakers select LeBron James became the NBA's
all-time leading scorer, breaking the record of 38,387
points set more than 38 years ago by another Lakers
legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
LeBron entered the league out of high school in 2003
as an 18-year-old from Akron, Ohio,
and now at 38, he's still going strong.
He's been a driving force for creating change, from speaking
up on social justice issues to creating the I Promise
School in his home state.
LeBron is also known for his actions off the court.
Our CNN 10 special guest Omar Jimenez
is in Los Angeles covering this historic moment.
OMAR JIMENEZ: People came to see history, and they witnessed it.
LeBron James now the all-time leading scorer in NBA history,
and he would be the first to admit that he didn't think
he would be the one to break what
some thought was a previously unbreakable record.
But when you look at everything LeBron
has done over the course of his career, who else would
it have been?
And the moment came on a Tuesday night, and when that happened,
when he hit a fadeaway off the left elbow,
almost nothing but net, he ran to center court,
raised his arms in triumph as an entire arena cheered him on.
Likely many more watching from home.
He came to the center court and was greeted by his family
as the crowd chanted MVP.
He was emotional as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
the person whose record he now eclipsed,
embraced him and greeted him along
with the NBA commissioner.
And when you look at LeBron James's legacy,
the on-the-court, of course, will be respected and always
remembered, but the reaction and the
embraces that he had once he crossed
that milestone are emblematic of who he is off the court.
And for many, all of those come together in the legacy
that is LeBron James.
And when you talk about the historic milestone
that was crossed, it wasn't just a moment in NBA history.
For those watching and that have followed
him all around the world, this was a moment in history.
[UPBEAT ELECTRIC GUITAR MUSIC]
COY WIRE: And today's story getting a 10 out of 10,
it's absolutely nuts--
lots of them.
A pest control expert in California
found more than 700 pounds of acorns
from behind a wall in a home in Glen Ellen, California.
Now that's "acornucopia."
You're probably thinking, dang, squirrels,
why'd you go nuts in that person's wall like that?
Turns out woodpeckers were the culprits.
Typically, this type of bird would peck away
and drop thousands of acorns through a hole
and store them inside dying tree stumps.
But not these woodpeckers.
Look out, because they could be coming to your neighborhood
next.
All right, shout-out time now.
We're going Oceanside Middle School in Thomaston, Maine.
We see you.
We hope you and everyone watching around the world
have a wonderful one.
Did you know that today, February 9,
is National Pizza Day.
Whether it's New York-style thin crust, Chicago-style deep dish,
or anything in between, pizza is an American dream,
and you all have a pizza our heart.
I'm Coy Wire, and we are "CNN 10."
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