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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath

Aired August 31, 2005 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning to you, welcome to the second half-hour of DAYBREAK.
We are tracking the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so let's get straight to Chad. He's in the Weather Center.

Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

I'm just getting some things off of the Louisiana weather wire here. And I'm printing them off, so I'm not over by the weather wall, but they're very important. Some of the things that we're going to be talking about probably for the next couple of days is -- here we go, here's Titan.

Here goes the rain. Moves on up toward Erie, into Buffalo and into Ontario. This is the heaviest rain. And there is still a tornado watch box here for parts of Pennsylvania and also into upstate New York. Now the whole area here as we kind of move you around, it's going to see a little bit more rainfall, from Columbus back to Cincinnati.

But some of the things that I was just looking at, there's no way to know what the weather was in New Orleans yesterday. But I want to give you an idea. New Iberia broke a record, and that's not that far to the west. It was 98 degrees there yesterday, a new record high. So because New Orleans, because, obviously, the transmitter and all the weather instruments are destroyed, we won't know.

But here's an important message from the Mobile, Alabama area and also into the Louisiana area, travel is prohibited into the following areas of southeast Louisiana. From the Orleans Parish to St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, Jefferson, also including the New Orleans area. The Louisiana State Police urges all wanting to travel, conditions and find out what the conditions are, to go to www.lsp (Louisiana State Patrol) .org and you'll be able to find out about travel conditions there.

Clearly, I-10 is destroyed. That twinspan bridge no longer exists. There's going to be a lot of things that are unusual. Even if you're just trying to go north of New Orleans, there's a lot of things there. That even going through Mississippi and Alabama, a lot of bridges don't exist any more and a lot of travel problems are going to be there for those folks down there trying to get in or out.

COSTELLO: You got that right. MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: Thank you -- Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Recovery has begun in many areas laid waste by Hurricane Katrina, but pulling together the pieces will not be easy. Adding to the total destruction of homes and businesses is the expected discovery of more people who did not survive the storm.

CNN's Ted Rowlands is in Biloxi, Mississippi right now.

And you know I've been reading AP wire all morning long, Ted, and here's a quote from a man who stayed in his home, along with his wife, during the height of the storm. He said "the house just split in half. I can't find my wife's body. I held her hand as tight as I could, and she told me you can't hold me. She said take care of the kids and grandkids. We ain't got no where to go," he said. "I'm lost. That's all I had." And his wife's body is still missing this morning.

How many other stories are there like that there?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, presumably dozens. And the problem is getting the folks that did not survive and then assessing how many bodies really that they're dealing with. Yesterday there were crews out with spray paint cans circling, not only bodies, but areas where they believe bodies were inside homes, not only in Biloxi, but in other small coastal towns on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It's a monumental task.

If you take that story and extrapolate it into hundreds of miles of coastline and potential stories just like that across that, that's what these search and rescue crews are up against. They started yesterday in earnest. They had specialized teams in the region, but they had to wait until the storm passed before they could come in and start the recovery operation. More teams have been dispatched here. Right now there are a total of 18 70-person teams which specialize in collapsed building rescues. And they're looking at places like this, which have been completely devastated.

This used to be a dwelling of some sort, not sure if it was an apartment or a home. But you know there's the front door and there's the rest of the house. We're standing on the cement slab that used to house all of this.

And this is the problem is that there wasn't a real -- that nobody really knows how many people tried to weather this thing out. A lot of folks did evacuate. But for those that did not, that thought that they could survive Katrina, most likely did not survive.

And the federal government has dispatched these teams, not only to rescue, but others also are recovery teams here, specifically some teams that specialize in mortuary work that will process the bodies. They do believe that the death toll will rise considerably over the next few days.

Haley Barbour, the Governor of Mississippi, after touring the wreckage, said it looked like what Hiroshima must have looked like after the bomb was dropped. And I've got to tell you he's pretty right on. It is amazing the devastation here and it is amazing to think about the work ahead.

COSTELLO: You're not -- I'd like to ask you a question about who's in charge of the plan for the state of Mississippi. They're having a big problem in New Orleans, according to the mayor, that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. Nobody knows who's in charge. Who is in charge there of the recovery efforts?

ROWLANDS: Well it's being coordinated through FEMA. But you know FEMA is quick to say that the state and local needs are dealt with and that they are there to help state governments. And you know it's the needs are the local needs and the federal government is helping to facilitate that. And there hasn't been that sort of discourse that we heard out of New Orleans here, as of yet.

But it is, you know you look at the task at hand, and it is monumental. Getting people here, because of the destruction that Katrina leveled on this area, it's not as though you can just drive up to some of these areas. You know now the infrastructure of the roads are at least passable so they can bring rescue crews in. But it is really a difficult job to coordinate it and to get out and find any potential survivors. That is their goal now, find anybody that's alive and then work on the recovery later.

COSTELLO: Ted Rowlands live in Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.

In Mobile, Alabama, a key bridge struck by a runaway oil platform has partially reopened. Engineers took a look and determined it is safe.

So let's see how things are going in Mobile this hour. Ed McCarthy is there.

Good morning -- Ed.

ED MCCARTHY, CNN RADIO: Carol, good morning.

And that is big news here in Mobile, that bridge, because everybody was concerned about that. We've had such a difficult time trying to get around from point A to point B. And that is Alabama's largest bridge and reopening certainly is good news.

Also, you know you look for good news during these things, Carol. And one little story to pass along about a woman who was part of a 49- member family and they had an 8-car caravan. They were coming from New Orleans and she got as far as Cullman, Alabama. And now they're going to have 50 in that family, because she had a baby girl. She got to the hospital in time. And mother and baby girl doing fine. So isn't that great news?

COSTELLO: That is great news. And we needed some great news this morning in the midst of all the bad news.

MCCARTHY: There's also, Carol, news that people will be finally getting some help. They'll be getting water, ice and those MREs. Those Meals Ready to Eat. Distribution centers are going to be set up here tomorrow.

Now many people will benefit who came from New Orleans and the other hard hit areas of Mississippi who evacuated before Katrina leveled those areas. So at least they'll be getting some help up in this area, if they were able to get here through all those evacuation plans.

COSTELLO: What's the electricity like there -- Ed?

MCCARTHY: Well it's spotty at best, Carol. We did get electricity back yesterday for a time, and then it blanked out again about 8:00 last night. So phones and electricity gone. But if you look on the other side of the streets, there is electricity. So certain areas were able to keep it up.

I think it's a problem with transformers that blow out from time to time because of the overload. You know when the electricity goes out and they get the power up quickly in certain areas, sometimes there's an overload, and I think that's the problem.

So where I am right now, my location, we have none. And we're hoping to get it back, because it's a big boost for you, for your morale when the electricity and the phones come back. Things that you don't realize you take for granted, and when you don't have them, you realize how much you really miss them.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding. Like, for example, in the city of New Orleans, cell phones are going dead, but you can't charge them because there's no electricity. So family members can't get a hold of anyone and it's become very frustrating.

The other frustration that I know many people must be feeling is here you are, your neighborhood, your community has been devastated. You can't go back to work. You can't go back to your home. At some point your money is going to start running out and what do you do?

MCCARTHY: Tough, tough situation. I was listening half the night to people calling in to a talk show, which they've set up along the Gulf Coast here, where people can call in and offer information about where they're finding gasoline and this and that. And you know one fellow called up and he said do you think I can go to work today, and he named the shipping plant. And the fellow gave him the bad news that that shipping place had been just put out of business because of the storm, just completely leveled it, and there's nothing left. So you know just horrible news.

People don't know because of that communication level, or lack of, and they're trying to get the information. And you know they're trying to get their spirits up, as well, saying, gee, maybe I can get to work today, that would be great for me. And then they find out that horrible news. COSTELLO: It's gone.

MCCARTHY: So it's just one thing after another. Yes.

COSTELLO: And you know the other thing is we're going to speak to a young lady in the next hour of DAYBREAK and she evacuated New Orleans. But she says you know there's nothing to go back to so now I'm going to make my life where I am right now, which is South Carolina. So it's kind of sad, you lose your whole way of life because you pretty much don't have a choice if you can't get back to work or back to your home for months.

MCCARTHY: And a lot of people are spending time with relatives. One gentleman I spoke with yesterday said that he was heading out. He said goodbye to me and it was nice meeting you. And he's heading off to Birmingham, Alabama, where he's going to stay with relatives in the meantime until he can sort things out. But he was in Diamondhead (ph), Mississippi. And he said you know I know my home is not going to be there. I just don't have any optimism about that. Very, very sad.

COSTELLO: Ed McCarthy, CNN Radio, joining us live this morning from Mobile. Thanks so much, Ed.

National Guard troops are moving into the French Quarter in New Orleans to try to -- to try and stem the tide of that widespread looting.

Art Rascone with CNN affiliate KTRK confronted some of the looters to ask why they were stealing?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ART RASCONE, KTRK-TV REPORTER (voice-over): There is a free-for- all mentality here.

(on camera): Talk to us about this, why are you taking these clothes?

(voice-over): Police and National Guard troops have simply walked away from much of it.

(on camera): You're set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

RASCONE: And you feel good about that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I mean you wouldn't feel good about it?

RASCONE: It's wrong. It's blatantly wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not wrong. If it was wrong, police would be out there right now blocking it off, you know. Then everybody get enough (ph).

RASCONE (voice-over): They have been kept busy making rescues.

(on camera): You thought you were going to -- the waters were going to take you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And I was upstairs in my house, but I can't last without food and water. Downstairs I done lost everything.

RASCONE (voice-over): There is a consistent run of military choppers shuffling flood victims. Some are raced away in ambulances. Others can only sit and weep. So many lives have been lost here, the grief is enormous, but gratitude runs high.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well my children are all right, and I'm so happy, thank God.

RASCONE: Not far away, a ride through a neighborhood.

(on camera): The flooding is absolutely amazing. This is just one of dozens of neighborhoods, and not just neighborhoods, but downtown, 80 percent of the city of New Orleans. Most of it was not caused by the hurricane, but instead because of broken dykes that allowed the waters to come in.

(voice-over): We were searching for a family deep in this affluent neighborhood. We eventually found them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Within...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within an hour.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... two hours it was already in...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first floor is completely covered within an hour, two hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That report from Art Rascone with our Houston affiliate KTRK.

Still to come this Wednesday morning, we'll talk to people who say they should have listened to the storm warnings. The struggle of living with regret just ahead.

And of course we'll also update damage across those cities in the area like Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, or a major bridge completely gone today.

DAYBREAK will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A bit of breaking news to tell you about this morning. In northeast Baghdad today, just a horrible scene, at least 635 people are dead after a stampede on a bridge over the Tigris River. Someone in the crowd screamed that a suicide bomber was among the crowd. A lot of people fell into the river. Some of them were crushed to death. Others drowned. Two hundred thirty-seven people were injured.

And the part about the food poisoning that we told you about in the last half-hour, that was according to Iraqi police. They now say that report is wrong.

A strike may be looming at Boeing. Union leaders are telling their 18,000 members to reject the company's latest contract offer. Workers will vote on the deal tomorrow.

Taiwan is bracing for Typhoon Talim to make landfall late tomorrow. Schools and government offices have been closed. Outer bands from the typhoon are already bringing heavy rain, strong winds and disrupting air travel off the island.

President Bush plans to cut short his vacation in order to see the storm-ravaged areas of Louisiana firsthand. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says the president will survey affected parishes on Friday.

And today has been declared a "Day of Prayer" in Louisiana. The Governor, Kathleen Blanco, issued the decree. Says she's asking people to pray for the victims and for the rescuers. More than 3,000 people have been pulled from rooftops. Many more are in need of help.

To the Forecast Center now and Chad with the latest.

Good morning.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

The storm has pulled well away from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but the damage is done. For a time, 75 percent of all the residents in Mississippi were without power.

There is the rain moving on up. The clouds, the clouds shield. The center of the circulation not that far from Erie, Pennsylvania. That's where the lowest pressure would be.

But I took my own advice and went to LouisianaStatePatrol.org Web site to find out this. The roads into central Louisiana, every time you see a red pin, it's closed. Mississippi, Alabama, lots of the Louisiana roads are impassable. I-10 and Interstate 12 across southeast Louisiana to Slidell, Mandeville and Madison and New Orleans are closed. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and I-10 Bridge between Slidell, Mandeville and New Orleans are destroyed. U.S. Highway 90 is closed across all of coastal Mississippi and southeast Louisiana. Highway 98 is closed from Mobile to Hattiesburg. Highway 49 is closed from Hattiesburg to Gulfport. Interstate 59 is also closed south of Hattiesburg to New Orleans.

So I guess the big story here is don't even try. And the other story is don't try, because there are people that have emergency services that do have to get here. Now there are other ways around, just don't clog those open roads -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Hopefully not. You know we have those satellite images from NASA -- Chad.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: NASA's keeping an eye on the storm. We're going to show you two shots. This shot is from, as I said, a satellite. It shows the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast before Hurricane Katrina hit.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: And, Chad, and if you can explain to us this next image, this is after the hurricane.

MYERS: Well you can begin to see the -- OK, I want you to notice south of that big circle. See the big circle, that's Lake Pontchartrain. Now notice the land that actually was yellow or light green and now it is blue. That blueness that has leaked out of Lake Pontchartrain is exactly the problem. That is where the water came through the 17th Street Canal, right up there by the new big highway bridge that they just built.

That 500-foot-long, now, breach in the canal is trying to be fixed. They've been dropping 1,500-pound concrete blocks. Those blocks that they use to block off a lane on the highway. They've been picking them up with helicopters, dropping them in the holes. And also, Carol, taking 3,000-pound sandbags. Now I don't know how big that is. But I went and bought a bunch of play sand. And the play sand that you buy from the Home Depot, that's 50 pounds. That's pretty big. So 3,000 pounds.

COSTELLO: I think they're filling them with gravel -- Chad.

MYERS: Yes.

COSTELLO: The sandbags with gravel, which of course would make them heavier.

MYERS: And it would make them not wash away as easy if the bag broke.

COSTELLO: Right.

MYERS: You can't just start dumping silt in that thing because the water is moving and the water would just take that silt away.

I was wondering whether you couldn't, for temporarily, like fill a car up with sandbags and drop the whole car in there, because then you've got such a big mass to try to stop something that won't float away.

COSTELLO: Well now they're going to use those big ship containers, those huge gigantic things.

MYERS: Excellent idea.

COSTELLO: Excellent idea. And, as I said in the last half-hour, we're going to have an expert on about 6:45 Eastern Time to talk about what they can do to get the water to stop leaking into the city of New Orleans.

MYERS: Right. Well they said it's not going to stop leaking until Lake Pontchartrain goes down.

COSTELLO: That's right.

MYERS: Well Lake Pontchartrain is not going down.

COSTELLO: No.

MYERS: It's being fed by the Gulf of Mexico, so they absolutely have to stem the flow.

COSTELLO: Absolutely.

MYERS: OK.

COSTELLO: All right, Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: You've heard it before, hindsight is 20/20. And so it is for so many people who live or lived along the Gulf Coast. So many people stayed at many of the small coastal communities and now they are paying the price.

Darwin Singleton of CNN affiliate WPMI has the story of one couple who regrets staying in their Pascagoula, Mississippi home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SONYA SELF, STORM SURVIVOR: Well, my son kept saying this does not happen. This you see only on TV. This never happened to you.

DARWIN SINGLETON, WPMI-TV REPORTER (voice-over): But it wasn't TV, and it was happening to Sonya Self, her son and her husband, Billy Self. They chose to ride out Katrina in their Pascagoula home a few blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. It was the wrong choice.

S. SELF: And the whirl was coming from everywhere. I mean beneath the...

BILLY SELF, STORM SURVIVOR: Refrigerator, freezer.

S. SELF: From the floor.

B. SELF: Everything was floating around the house.

S. SELF: Everything was floating.

SINGLETON: As the Self family scrambled into their attic to escape the rising storm surge, Pascagoula was taking the beating of its life. Following the storm, those who still had cars put them to work either checking on relatives or checking out the damage. But the going wasn't, and still isn't, easy.

Major power lines and the structures that once held them were snapped and draped across four and five lanes of road. This is the bridge leading up to the Ingall's interchange (ph). Drivers creeping under thick strands of wire. Beyond that, Highway 90 becomes a checkerboard of missing squares of pavement.

Make it to Gautier and this is what you'll find. The storm surge siphoned what it could north of the city. Boats banged against buildings. A barge shoved I-10 slightly out of place.

Back toward Pascagoula on Highway 90, a showcase of shredded businesses. No storm surge here, wind did this.

Then east toward Mobile, Highway 90 is a stage for many scenes of drama and desperation. Flooded homes, flooded cars, stranded people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No power, no cell phone. Is everybody OK?

SINGLETON: Even alligators have found themselves out of familiar quarters. But unlike their human neighbors, the storm surge only offers them new places to live.

Not so for the Self family in Pascagoula.

S. SELF: No, never again. Never again.

SINGLETON: In Pascagoula, Darwin Singleton, NBC 15 News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: The effort to help flood victims in the southeast is a nationwide one. Just ahead we'll share some of the stories about people who are rolling up their sleeves to do what needs to be done on the Gulf Coast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Help for hurricane victims is pouring in almost as fast as the floodwaters did. A rescue unit from Fairfax County, Virginia, that's well known for dealing with past disasters, has packed up and is now heading to the hurricane zone.

Florida had its own share of damage from Hurricane Katrina's first swipe at land, but that is not stopping state troopers from heading out to help others. Florida has sent 55 state troopers to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to help storm victims there.

Some help from New Hampshire is on its way to the Gulf Coast. Hundreds of people in New England are lining up to donate blood to the storm victims.

And there are teams of rescuers focusing on saving the pets and animals that have been stranded by the storm. Animal rescuers are paying special attention to horses stranded in floodwaters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLAN SCHWARTZ, ANIMAL RESCUER: A horse cannot stand for days on end in water. It creates -- horses, sheep, goat, cat, all those animals, hoofed animals, if they're standing in water for great lengths of time, it creates hoof problems, leg problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Schwartz says there are also animals affected by the flooding to watch out for like alligators and snakes.

The next hour of DAYBREAK starts in just a few moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It is Wednesday, August 31.

Katrina's floodwaters recede in some places and worsen in others. The headline in the Gulf Coast this morning fighting the floods to save lives. And again daylight will reveal more devastation.

The other top story this morning, a deadly stampede in Iraq kills hundreds, 600 or more. We'll have more on that story later.

And good morning to you.

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