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American Morning

New Orleans Filling up with Water; Public Health Threat Growing; Baghdad Stampede

Aired August 31, 2005 - 9:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We've got new pictures coming to us this morning of the absolute devastation in New Orleans, which is getting worse by the minute. There's water pouring into the city from a broken levee. New Orleans is filling up with water, in fact, as we are watching. We've got a live report just ahead.
In Mississippi this morning, an exclusive look at some of the smaller towns in the path of Hurricane Katrina. The destruction there just as complete.

And from Iraq, a stunning loss of life in Baghdad. Nearly 650 people killed today in a stampede. Many of them women and children.

Their story and all that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien, live from Slidell, Louisiana, a town that is, in may respects, on its knees in the wake of Katrina.

Tens of thousands of trees have come down. Many hundreds of homes were flooded out by the storm surge. No communication in or out of here right now. And electricity, power, water, gas lines all not operative. The people here in this town, the mayor, the police officers, are urging people who evacuated not to come back, and doing what they can to account for those who are missing in the wake of Katrina.

In the meantime, a little sense of the kind of mess here. Look at this muck. This muck is literally everywhere.

If you multiply this out times perhaps many millions of places all throughout the tri-state region here, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, this is a sense of the cleanup of what lies ahead. In this particular town they're saying it will be at least 12 weeks before even the first light bulb comes on. It's hard to get a sense of the magnitude of the devastation in the wake of Katrina -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles, and, you know, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, right now there's more water pouring into New Orleans. So far, efforts to replace broken levees that have swamped the city are failing. Workers are trying to plug the holes with huge concrete blocks. They're also looking for a barge to try to fill the gap.

Meanwhile, the water just keeps rising near downtown -- rather, near the superdome, and that's where thousands of people have taken shelter. Some describe the city as looking like a war zone.

Of course this is causing huge frustration for residents, those who are still trapped, for city officials who are desperate to stop the water, help the stranded. Earlier, I spoke with New Orleans' mayor, Ray Nagin, on the phone about the battles that his city is facing today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: Well, you know, we have, you know, our challenges, and obviously over the last couple of hours the challenges have escalated. The good news in the city is that we -- our rescue efforts have been tremendous, and we've saved thousands of people that have been on top of roofs and stuck in attics. But unfortunately, we do have that rising water situation.

We are talking, but unfortunately the communication assistance is not that great down here. Most of the cell phones are not working. E-mails are not working properly. Batteries have run out on most of the radio systems that we have. So we're constantly in a state of flux as it relates to communications. But we're going to get it fixed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: That's the mayor, Ray Nagin, discovering a litany of problems that the folks in New Orleans face today. And the elected officials, as well as many people, ask questions about where are the supplies and what are the plans for trying to get some of the people out of the Superdome to try to figure out where they're going to house the tens of thousands of people who are going to need housing for a long time?

And also, is there any registry? How are people who are unaccounted for by their family members maybe out of town, maybe out of the city, how are they able to track their loved ones who they cannot find? Many questions obviously remain.

Also, what exactly is the status of this levee? I mean, it seems as if you can't fix the levee until the water's out, you can't get the water out until you fix the levee.

Let's get right to Chad Myers, who can explain what's happening there.

Hey, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad.

They dropped these concrete barriers, the same barriers that sometimes will separate one lane of traffic from another, 1,500-pound concrete, those barriers that you move once in a while. Also, 3,000- pound sandbags.

Here's New Orleans. We see Lake Pontchartrain. Also, you see Metairie. And also, even on to the west bank. I'm going to fly you down into the Mississippi River area here. The flooding is actually coming from the north side, from Lake Pontchartrain, to 17th Street Canal, way up on top, actually by the -- by the boats up here, by the marina. The Hammond Highway Bridge right there, about 500 yards south of that Hammond Highway Bridge, there is a breach in that levee, in that sea wall.

Now, I want to remind you that the pictures you see here were probable taken six or eight months ago. We have a fly-over going over right now, going over today, so we can compare the two different pictures, one here of the obviously dry land, and one that's happening right now of where the water actually is.

The French Quarter that you see here is one of the drier areas in the French Quarter, or in New Orleans itself, because this is one of the highest areas -- that is still below sea level -- but one of the highest areas, only eight feet below sea level, where parts out here where I was showing you before, the residential areas, almost 20 feet below sea level at times -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's a huge, huge mess. All right. Chad, thanks.

Well, as the devastation from Hurricane Katrina grows, so does the public health threat.

Dr. Irwin Redlener is the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. It's a part of Columbia University School of Public Health. Talking about the problems for the days and weeks, and really months and probably years ahead for the city of New Orleans and other smaller towns that are facing similar problems.

What's your biggest concern right now?

DR. IRWIN REDLENER, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Well, the biggest concern are the traditional public health dilemmas that accompany a disaster like this. So safe water supply, dealing with sewage, food eventually, and then people getting access to medical care. And all of that happens simultaneously.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's go, then, in that order...

REDLENER: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: ... because you have problems on each and every front there.

REDLENER: Every single front simultaneously. And in a very wide geographic area, which is one of the things that makes this particularly challenging.

It's almost, in many cases, worse than the typical hurricane that it's much more concentrated in the area that's devastated. So the ability to get help from the outside, from everything from fresh water to medical help, is usually much more easy than this particular situation is. And... S. O'BRIEN: The problems with sewage, start with that.

REDLENER: Well, yes.

S. O'BRIEN: I mean, because of the way New Orleans is built, and really any city that gets flooded, sewage automatically is going to start flowing into the city, right down into the city streets.

REDLENER: Exactly. So you have, first of all, people exposed immediately to raw sewage, which the sewage treatment plants of course are not working because the power is down. And secondly, you have sewage contaminating the water supply. So you not only have the danger of the sewage itself, but also the sewage contaminating the water supply. And thirst and the need for water is one of the primary needs that must be fulfilled as quickly as possible.

S. O'BRIEN: People will drink dirty water.

REDLENER: People will drink dirty water.

S. O'BRIEN: If they get thirsty enough.

What about -- I mean, we heard this horrific story today of a woman whose husband died. And people -- and she sat with him for hours because there's nothing you can do with the body. Or other people who couldn't even move the bodies and just went to tell the coroner, well, I marked it and you can find the body here or there.

I mean, it seems incredibly chaotic.

REDLENER: It's an incredibly chaotic situation, one of which, by the way, here in the United States we're just not used to this kind of chaos. Even during the worst times during 9/11, there seems to be a greater sense of control than what we have here.

We have a breakdown of systems that really has a lot to do with how widespread the damage is and how much disorganization and disruption in the typical systems currently exist. Don't forget, even around 9/11, we had thousands and thousands of people flooding in from nearby states and communities to help. Here you can't even get there to help.

So things like dealing with people who are sick, even people with routine injuries. So you can imagine somebody having a heart attack now. They can't get help. There is no way to get any kind of rescue to people.

S. O'BRIEN: They're certainly not going to get it anytime soon.

What about psychological issues? I mean, you -- some of the people we have seen on television who have seen the very worst? Our correspondents are practically crying on the air as they describe...

REDLENER: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: ... you know, animals being electrocuted because they're caught up in tangled power lines. I mean, it's horrific.

REDLENER: This is an enormously stressful situation for everybody, by the way, including the rescue workers. So the psychological impact of all of this -- now, some people will be horribly stressed but get through this. Many other people are going to be stressed in ways that will require a lot of support over a long period of time and will be vulnerable to psychological problems well into the future. We know this from other disaster experiences.

So the combination of needing the mental health support, as well as trying to re-establish some semblance of life and access to vital services, creates an extraordinarily complex public health environment and rescue environment that people are trying to work through right now.

S. O'BRIEN: They've got to bring some of those services to people pretty fast or they're going to see some big, big problems.

REDLENER: Absolutely.

S. O'BRIEN: Dr. Irwin Redlener, nice to see you, from Columbia University. We appreciate it.

REDLENER: Thanks, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get right back to Miles.

Miles, good morning again.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning again, Soledad.

Slidell, Louisiana, is our location this morning, and we've been talking this morning on a couple of occasions about this search for missing people. And quite frankly, there were quite a few people who, in the wake of the previous storms of this season, drew the false conclusion that it would be OK to stay and weather Katrina. Call it the Ivan effect, if you will, the Category 2-type storms that came through and didn't cause serious damage. And that has created the concern that many people have about a very steep death toll, people weathering that storm.

Last -- actually, two hours ago, we had Captain Rob Callahan with us from the Slidell Police, who had just been to his house for the first time, destroyed by the flood. His neighbor, an 80-year-old blind man, was unaccounted for at that point.

Now, since that time he left, we can show you a picture of him going in to his neighbor's house, as well as your own house.

Tell me what you discovered.

CAPT. ROB CALLAHAN, SLIDELL POLICE: Well, first of all, in reference to my neighbor, we busted in, got in there, and found that he was gone. So apparently he got out somehow, which is great. I didn't want to se Mr. Frank deceased.

In reference to my home...

M. O'BRIEN: But you know he's safe somehow, right?

CALLAHAN: Somehow he's safe, right.

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

CALLAHAN: In reference to my own home, totally destroyed. Everything you work for is gone. But that's OK. We're happy. The twins that I have...

M. O'BRIEN: That's OK? You're happy? Come on.

CALLAHAN: Yes. No, I mean, not happy. We're alive and we can rebuild. And that's fine. My family is safe. Everything in that regard is great.

M. O'BRIEN: And you had a mundane sort of rescue. But, I mean, maybe for your twins not so mundane.

CALLAHAN: Well, I did get a chance to call out, and they were concerned about their box turtles. We put them high in the home, and they wanted to make sure that those box turtles were OK.

So I got back to the house and they were OK. Got them out of their bins and I set them free. You know, that was the most important thing for them, was make sure that their pets survived.

M. O'BRIEN: While we're on the subject of wildlife, you noted something rather interesting on your street there. Tell us about what you saw.

CALLAHAN: Well, while driving back there, you had the smell of fish. And you really didn't realize -- you know, there's so much destruction and so many things going on, and so much sensory overload, I realized that there were fish in my yard that came from Lake Pontchartrain, which is about four miles away.

And it's incredible. Lake Pontchartrain is in my neighborhood. Guestimation of fish, about 100,000 fish sitting right in that one particular area.

M. O'BRIEN: What say a scene. I mean, would you have ever predicted that?

CALLAHAN: No, it's surreal. It's incredible. I mean, who would have ever have thought that that would happen here? You know? It's just incredible.

M. O'BRIEN: Unfortunately, your city has become a part of Lake Pontchartrain, a little more than you'd like.

CALLAHAN: Yes. You know, we've always thought if the big one came, which Katrina was, that that was a possibility, but people rode it off. They didn't think that it was a real possible that that could happen. And now it was real. It was right. M. O'BRIEN: There's a sense of denial, and really an inability to envision what we're going through right now. Perhaps because nobody wanted to.

CALLAHAN: Exactly. You know, I had a lot of people say, "Well, I lived through Camille and Betsy and all those things, and it's not going to flood here in Slidell because it didn't back then."

And we were asking people, please get out. And now -- and that's why we think the death toll may go up once we get into some of these homes that people stayed behind. You know, it's going -- it's going to be a very difficult task for the emergency services here.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Captain Rob Callahan, thank you very much.

At least in one case we know your 80-year-old neighbor, blind, probably got out OK. But boy, what an amazing scene. We wish you all well.

Back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles. Thanks.

We want to take you to a breaking story out of Iraq this morning. Police say at least 648 Shiite pilgrims are dead, hundreds more injured, after a stampede near a bridge near a mosque in northeast Baghdad.

Jennifer Eccleston live in Baghdad for us.

Jennifer, good morning. What's the latest?

JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

That's right, a massive loss of life in northeast Baghdad. The scene of chaos at an annual Shiite religious commemoration.

At least 648 people, mainly women, children and the elderly, died during a stampede which erupted on a bridge over the Tigris River, which is a main -- this bridge a main thoroughfare for pilgrims to arrive at this commemoration at the Kadhimiya mosque.

Now, a pilgrim told Iraqi police that as the thousands of people walked this revered Shiite shrine, someone in the crowd shouted that there was a suicide bomber. And as you can imagine, panic ensued as the crowds tried to flee to either side of the bridge.

Now, the sheer crush of people, it forced one of the railings of the bridge to collapse. And then people tumbled off the bridge into the Tigris River.

Now, police say, while some of the people who died were actually crushed during the stampede, the majority of the dead drowned in the river. And they say the number of dead could still rise because they are still pulling people from the river. They also say that 322 people are reported injured, and they're being treated at five Baghdad hospitals which are said to be overwhelmed by a number of casualties. And today is already tense in that region.

This morning, there were mortar attacks on that same mosque which killed seven people and wounded 36 others. U.S. forces responded to that strike and detained 12 for questioning -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, it looks terrible. All right. Jennifer Eccleston for us this morning. Jennifer, thanks.

Coming up in just a moment, the latest on the race to stop those rising floodwaters in New Orleans. The water is 20 feet deep in some parts of the city. Take a look at these pictures.

And then later, the difficult task of treating the wounded in Katrina's aftermath. We're going to get an update from a makeshift triage center in New Orleans.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Take a look at these pictures. This right here is the problem. That's the broken levee. That is the problem right there.

The water clearly flowing right over it. Of course they can't quite get in there to fix the levees and fix the pumps until the water can get out of there. They can't quite get the water out, of course, until they can fix the levee.

So you sort of have a catch 22. A very dangerous one. And New Orleans is a dangerous place to be today.

It's rapidly getting worse, in fact. No power, no drinking water, lots of looting reported. Water is pouring into the city from that broken levee, and the water continues to rise.

Let's get right to Sydney Barthelemy. He was the mayor of New Orleans from 1986 until 1994. He's in Atlanta this morning.

Thank you for talking with us. We certainly appreciate it.

You know, we've been asking a lot of people this morning this question: Why was there no plan in place? New Orleans has been below sea level forever. And clearly, it's in the path of hurricanes. So why no plan?

SIDNEY BARTHELEMY, FMR. MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: I think, Soledad, everyone thought there was a plan. Everyone thought that we could handle most of the problems that would come due to a hurricane. No one ever dreamed that it would take -- be such devastation.

We really need the president of the United States to make this a priority. We have to stop the breaches in the levee. We have to, or we're going to lose New Orleans and lose thousands of people there.

I believe there are about 80,000 people that are trapped in the city right now. And if we don't solve this problem, we will lose those people.

S. O'BRIEN: But the Army Corps of Engineers -- we spoke to them this morning -- they're working on it. It seems that they're doing what they can do. What more should they be doing? What else could the president do?

BARTHELEMY: Well, then the president can send the Army to help and resolve this. Three thousand new troops are coming in. That's not enough.

We did everything possible to help the people who were suffering from the tsunami. We have to make this a priority. We have to send the Army to stop this, or we will lose New Orleans, and we will lose 80,000 people, I believe.

S. O'BRIEN: Mayor Nagin we heard earlier. I guess he was doing an interview earlier, and he said there are too many cooks in the kitchen, essentially. It sounds like a lot of the elected officials are frustrated, and a lot of lack of coordination, in addition to the fact that, clearly, you know, no cell phones.

It's just difficult, but it also seems like on that front there was no plan either. I mean, who's really in charge?

BARTHELEMY: Soledad, I think it's just overwhelming. I have to believe the officials now are doing all that they can do, using as many resources that they have. That's not enough. The president of the United States is the only person who has the resources to coordinate, to bring in the troops, to make this city a safe place, and solve the problems, particularly the breach in the levee.

They're losing hope. Everything they're doing, the problem is not getting better. It's getting worse.

S. O'BRIEN: The president -- forgive me for interrupting you, sir.

BARTHELEMY: All right.

S. O'BRIEN: The president would say, listen, we declared a disaster area before the storm even hit, I'm coming on Friday to take a look at the devastation in the region. What more do you want?

BARTHELEMY: Friday may be too late, Soledad. We don't have that time to wait.

We need him now to send the troops now. If we can spend the moneys that we are spending to help the people in Iraq, then we can do the same thing for New Orleans.

This is a great country, we have tremendous resources. We have to make this a resolve, because if New Orleans goes, it's going to have a devastating impact not just on the people who live there, but on the rest of this nation.

S. O'BRIEN: Can we take a moment and talk a little bit about the Superdome? You've got 20,000 angry, hot, tired, underfed people in really disgusting conditions, I think it's fair to say. What should be done with them?

The governor says we need to get them out now, but the plan seems to be buses. I don't know where -- how the buses would get out of the city. What do you do with them?

BARTHELEMY: Again, Soledad, I think we have to send the resources in. The governor, she wants to do the best thing. She wants to evacuate. The mayor wants to evacuate.

They do not have the resources. I don't know how you say to the federal government, this is a national disaster? We must save those people and save that city. That means sending the military in right now.

We can't wait. We've got to send the military in now who have the resources to save this city and save those people down there that are trapped.

S. O'BRIEN: Sydney Barthelemy is the former mayor of New Orleans.

Thank you for talking with us. And I'm sure this is just devastating to you to be watching this.

BARTHELEMY: I've lost everything, Soledad. And I want to thank you for trying to get our story out. It is -- it is such a disaster. We need the help. We need the president to focus on what's happening in New Orleans right now.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, sir.

Our complete coverage of Katrina's aftermath will continue in just a moment. We are getting some terrible pictures, showing you really the scope of the devastation. We'll take a closer look, explain what you're seeing right here in just a moment on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: The scope of Katrina's destruction becomes all the more clearer when it's seen from above. CNN photographer Jay Schexnyder is in Lafayette, Louisiana. He knows the terrain very well. He shot extensive aerial footage of the devastation on Tuesday, and he's at the CNN center this morning.

Jay, good morning.

JAY SCHEXNYDER, CNN PHOTOGRAPHER: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Thanks. Five thousand feet is where you were flying, and you were going over Louisiana and Mississippi as well. What's the worst that you saw?

SCHEXNYDER: I saw extremely heavy damage from storm surge in Gulfport, Mississippi. That was -- I think this footage here is Grand Isle. I'm not quite sure right at the moment, but that's in south Louisiana.

Gulfport, Mississippi, was extremely hard hit by the storm surge. Yes this, is Grand Isle. This is Gulfport.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, that's Gulfport. I mean, obliterated. Absolutely obliterated.

SCHEXNYDER: You can see half of this neighborhood has been wiped off of its foundation. And I'm shooting from the Gulf side, so you see the Gulf of Mexico had pushed in and then receded and left this line of debris through the center of the island.

S. O'BRIEN: Did you see any people?

SCHEXNYDER: Since we were so high up, I didn't really see people. This is Highway 90 bridge, the Bay St. Louis Bridge. It's a four-lane highway, and it is just totally wiped away.

S. O'BRIEN: What was it like to shoot this, Jay? I mean, obviously, you've been in the business a long time and you've seen a lot of very awful things.

SCHEXNYDER: It's just amazing to see the widespread damage. This is Gulfport as well, the Long Beach area, and you can see containers from ships that have been pushed inland and dropped into the streets. Containers from the local port. That's Gulfport.

And this is the Metairie section of New Orleans near the Lake Pontchartrain, and it is flooded. Thousands of homes flooded.

And there was cloud cover over New Orleans. I couldn't get all of the shots I wanted. But it's just amazing the extent of the flooding. I've been through this area many times in person, and I just can't fathom the amount of damage that these people are going to deal with.

S. O'BRIEN: And what is it like to essentially record all that, you know, neighborhood after neighborhood? You know, if anybody has sort of seen the scope of it, you have. What does that feel like?

SCHEXNYDER: It's an amazing thing because you're familiar with the area and you're shooting it as you see it. You don't have a chance to really look at it ahead of time, so I'm looking at it through the viewfinder as we're flying.

And it's a helpless feeling in a way. This is Slidell, Louisiana. And all you can do is feel for these people because, obviously, flooding is so devastating that it's even worse than the wind, I think. It's just such a pervasive, damaging thing.

S. O'BRIEN: They have lost everything. I mean, I think your pictures speak a thousand words. They've lost everything. And home after home after home after home has either been obliterated, as we see in these pictures here, blown off their foundations, or just, you know, will be gone, because once the water eventually goes, the home will not -- will not survive it.

SCHEXNYDER: Simply looking at the piles of debris, it's going to take so long just to pick up the broken pieces, much less the houses that are standing, but full of mud.

S. O'BRIEN: Jay Schexnyder, thank you.

SCHEXNYDER: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Amazing vantage point to be capturing all this damage from. Appreciate it, Jay.

A short break and we're back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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