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CNN Live At Daybreak

Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath

Aired September 01, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Thursday, September 1.
Some of Katrina's victims are now far from home and the hurricane's impact is being felt on a national level this morning. Loaded buses arrive in Texas. Weary storm refugees take a long trip to safety.

Hurricane Katrina also stirs up rising numbers at the gas pump. Take a look at the price of that gas.

And efforts to help storm victims are getting organized. We'll tell you who's on tap to help.

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you.

Also ahead here this hour, the miracle of birth in the middle of a deadly hurricane. These are some survivors' stories you won't want to miss, and believe me, you will never forget them.

Let's head to the Forecast Center now and Chad to check on this storm and if it's finally broken apart.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It finally has, Carol. There's still a few scattered showers over Atlantic Canada, over northeastern Maine. But everything else is in pretty good shape for right now.

I want to take you to some pictures, some air photo pictures that we got from yesterday about the flooding in New Orleans. We can zoom in here. I just want to give you an idea of what this city looked like before the flooding. One more stop. We're going to get up here to where the levee broke, that 17th Street canal we talk about so much. The levee break was right about there.

Now I'm going to switch my source to the latest picture from there, from yesterday. You'll notice there are a couple of clouds in the picture, as well. But the break right there. That's the levee break right there. And we -- people are asking, now, it's been flooding and it's been going up for hours and hours and hours. How can you still say 80 percent flooded? Because, you know what? Some of the city is not flooded because the levee on that side of the canal did not break.

I'm going to get closer to you. Here's the flooded side. You can see the darker blue. And here's the dry side. So, wow, what a difference just one side of the levee to the other side of the levee makes.

We're going to go back down here to the south. You're also going to see this little line that we've drawn in here where the French Quarter is still fairly dry. As you ramp up from the city, from Louis Armstrong Park right on up to the Mississippi River, it goes up a little bit. Now, if you're walking, you can't feel that it goes up, but it's just enough, a couple of feet that takes you up just a little bit, all the way to where Cafe du Monde is. And right there on the other side where the Natchez is.

Here's the Superdome. And you can see that it's on the wet side of that line. And I'll take you back up a little bit farther to the north. A lot of people know about City Park. A lot of people know about the race track. Here's where the Jazz Fest occurs every year. Completely underwater, Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh. You know, you mentioned Cafe du Monde and you think of the vignettes and you hope it's still there and intact.

MYERS: Oh, it's still there, but, you know...

COSTELLO: If it's intact, though, that's another story.

MYERS: Exactly.

COSTELLO: Yes.

Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: The first wave of hurricane refugees from Louisiana is arriving in Texas this morning. They're being bussed from the New Orleans Superdome to the Houston Astrodome. That's a journey of more than 300 miles.

Here's the official convoy. But before they began arriving, a so-called renegade bus pulled up at the Houston arena.

Our Keith Oppenheim joins us now live from the Astrodome -- tell us more.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we'll tell you about that renegade bus in just a moment. It's a really interesting story, Carol.

But first I just want to show you the entrance to the Astrodome behind me, because it's through these gates that buses are going to continue to be coming to the Astrodome. In fact, one just came about a half hour or so from now. And these buses are going to be carrying 20,000 people over the next couple of days, nearly 500 buses. And they will be giving people the refuge that they need here.

When you think of the number of staff that it will take here, it's enormous. Eight hundred local food workers will be providing three meals a day. People will be given a medical screening once on the inside, and if they're sick, they're going to be sent to hospitals. And also you have people who are going to be giving everyone who comes in a comfort kit with toiletries so that they can use one of only four locker rooms where people can take a shower.

All that sounds pretty good for the folks who are coming from the Superdome to the Astrodome, but that is officially what the Superdome -- or, excuse me -- the Astrodome is for, only for those folks. And when you go to the perimeter of the Astrodome, Carol, you find people on the outside of the gates who have not been allowed in.

I spoke to one guy by the name of Kendall Wright just about a half hour ago, and as you'll hear, he was pretty frustrated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENDALL WRIGHT: Everything is shut down. Everything is closed. There's no food, no nothing in New Orleans. Nothing. We were told to come here. They have people walking here, literally walking to get here because this is what we were told. Now we get here at the Astrodome here in Houston, and we can't get in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OPPENHEIM: People outside of the Astrodome, Carol, are very frustrated. All you have to do is step outside the gates of these grounds right here and you get such a sense of the despair that people have gone through. They have come a long way, but if they were not in that official caravan, in most cases, they have been turned away -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I guess in a way I can understand that. But this poor guy. I mean if he can prove he's from New Orleans, why not just let him in?

OPPENHEIM: Well, there are cases that you referred to where people have been let in. That renegade bus was a school bus from Orleans Parish in Louisiana, apparently driven by a 20-year-old young man and with about 50, maybe as many as 70 people on board. The Red Cross, by the way, is running things here at the Astrodome. And after about a half hour or so last night, around 12:30 in the morning when that bus arrived, before the official buses did, they realized that this was not an official bus.

According to the other crew, Sean Callebs and company, who were working here last night, the folks that were on that school bus originally were telling some fibs, saying that they were part of the official caravan. But the folks here could tell that that was not the case. But still, they did let those people to get inside. So they were allowed in.

COSTELLO: And that's a good thing because, according to Sean Callebs, those people were in pretty bad shape. It was obvious that they had been through a lot.

OPPENHEIM: Sean's description to me about it was that their faces looked hallow, they looked really tired and emotionally just exhausted from what they have been through.

COSTELLO: Keith Oppenheim reporting live from the Houston Astrodome this morning.

What's left behind in New Orleans certainly isn't pretty. A CNN crew there overnight heard gunfire in the streets. But no one knows who's shooting. Extra police and National Guard troops have been sent in to help stem the tide of looters. But for now, it seems safer just to get out of town.

CNN's John Zarrella takes us along on his own personal evacuation.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The hotel was being evacuated. Before we could leave, we had to change a tire in the darkened parking garage. In knee deep water in the garage, women and children were lifted into the back of high riding pickup trucks. We made our way out behind the other evacuees. We drove on the sidewalk on Common Street, the lowest water, but still up to the wheel wells. Our seven vehicle caravan regrouped on Canal Street, where we dropped off with the police six hotel evacuees who we had ferried out.

While we waited to move on, cameraman Mark Viello (ph) talked with three young men who admitted looting but said there was a reason.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: NOPD, the police, was (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Took our shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And made some (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in the streets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And made it...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For no reason...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For no reason.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People were just walking down the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They put their guns in our face.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said do we have a gun? Do I look like I have a gun on me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With no shirt on?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No shoes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They took our shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We put your face down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we went and got us some new shoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, that's why we got new ones.

ZARRELLA: On Canal Street, people walked in a daze. Water lapped against buildings. Storefronts smashed. It was impossible to know whether it was the hurricane or the looters or both that had done the damage.

From Canal, we wound our way through side streets. It took more than an hour to make it to Highway 90.

Producer Silvio Carillo (ph) snapped a picture of Air Force One. The president was getting a bird's eye view of the destruction as he returned to Washington.

The traffic on Highway 90 was heavy in both directions. Heading out of New Orleans, a steady stream of evacuees. Heading in, convoys of relief supplies.

In the days and weeks ahead, this will be a road much traveled, a road of misery and of hope.

John Zarrella, CNN, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

COSTELLO: About 35 miles east of New Orleans, the town of Waveland, Mississippi has been virtually wiped off the map. In a grim task, officials are going around marking homes that contain the bodies of victims. State officials say Waveland took a harder hit from hurricane Katrina than any other town along the coast. Seven thousand people call this place home. Shell shocked survivors are now partially cut off from the world because the U.S. 90 Bridge over the Bay of St. Louis has been destroyed.

In fact, nothing in coastal Mississippi has been spared. And many desperate residents are complaining that they've gotten absolutely no aid still.

Ted Rowlands joins us live from hard hit Biloxi, Mississippi with the situation this morning -- good morning, Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Things seem to be getting better in that the presence of the National Guard is very evident here. They've come in late yesterday and overnight and this morning they are patrolling streets a bit in Biloxi, but also in these smaller coastal cities, where there's been real problems and real devastation.

Also, FEMA has sent the medical teams in and there are makeshift hospitals set up, portable hospitals that can basically do anything, not just basic medical work, but they can even perform surgery.

So help is coming and the help is coming at the right time, because there are a lot of people that have been stranded, basically. They survived the storm, but their homes didn't, and there's no electricity and there's no water, so they have been just making do, walking around and then hunkering down. A lot of people have just stayed on their property, concerned about looters and they have been just hanging out and waiting.

But as time goes on and they lose -- they start to dehydrate, they don't have enough water, there's going to be a real problem in the next few days here. So now the challenge is get the help out across the Mississippi Gulf Coast and get it to the people that really do need it. And that help does seem to be coming in now.

COSTELLO: And, Ted, there is a flag behind you. And earlier you told us what that signified to people and it's kind of nice, so tell our viewers about it.

ROWLANDS: Well, this is a -- this was a business and obviously you can see it no longer is. And there is a complete area of devastation here. The business owners and employees came out here and they've been actually keeping a vigil here because they're concerned about looters. And they found this flag in pretty much perfect condition and they put it up there.

They say it's their signal -- their symbol of hope as they forge ahead here in these very difficult days. And the prospect of what lies ahead, this is going to be a very, very long process for everybody hit by Katrina. Rebuilding is not going to come easy.

COSTELLO: Ted Rowlands reporting live from Biloxi, Mississippi this morning.

The storm is gone, but the health crisis is just beginning. Water isn't the only problem in the wake of Katrina. We'll have a look next.

And the biggest ambulance service in Louisiana says it's overwhelmed both by the massive rescue and by lawlessness in New Orleans.

But first here's a look at other developments in the Gulf Coast region this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Now in the news, funerals are being held in Iraq today for victims of a massive bridge stampede in Baghdad. Some 965 Shiite pilgrims died. They panicked and ran after hearing rumors of a suicide bomber in the crowd.

Bells ring as Russians mark the first anniversary of the Beslan school massacre today. Some 300 people were killed after gunmen stormed the school and took more than a thousand hostages. The militants demanded Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya. Around the world, some Islamic extremists are rejoicing at America's misfortune, brought on by hurricane Katrina. In Internet chatter, they're declaring Katrina has joined the global Jihad, or holy war. And they implore the god's help -- they implore, with god's help, oil prices will hit $100 a barrel.

To the Forecast Center and Chad -- good morning.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

Looking at what was just the remnants now of Katrina moving completely away from Upstate New York, through Vermont now and into Atlantic Canada. Clear skies to the south. No real threat from too much weather today. In fact, this is a pretty tranquil couple of days in a row. Folks down there could sure use it.

Overnight, this turned into tropical storm Lee. Now it's down to tropical depression Lee. The water here not very warm.

Still, watching, though, a couple of big flare-ups where the water is warmer, right there. That could be something later on in the weekend. We'll have to keep watching it. Maria, the "M" storm, Maria, is our next storm if this does turn into a tropical storm.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Health issues across the Gulf States are serious. There is no clean water. Food is scarce. There's no power. But even once basic services are restored, there are major, long-term, lasting worries from this storm that can endanger people's health.

Joining me now is Dr. Pascal James Imperato.

He is with the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and is a former New York City health commissioner.

Thank you for joining us this morning.

DR. PASCAL JAMES IMPERATO, FORMER NEW YORK CITY HEALTH COMMISSIONER: Happy to be here.

COSTELLO: Some of the hospitals within New Orleans are still up and running, if you could even call it that. Many have lost even power generated by generators. I want you to listen to a comment that a nurse made. She was in Charity Hospital.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRYSTIN SMITH, REGISTERED NURSE, CHARITY HOSPITAL: We have no running water. I mean we are cleaning patients -- we have no linens. So our patients are sitting in feces and just, it's awful. I mean we're -- and not only that, but we are scared for ourselves, too, because it's becoming a hazard to take care of the patients because we are now getting sick, you know? We've had to start I.V.s in a number of our nurses throughout the whole hospital because we're dehydrated. We don't sleep at night, you know? We're working around the clock and, you know, we're not receiving the nutrition that we need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: For health care workers, this has got to be the worst -- well, it is the worst possible scenario. You can't even help the patients that you are to care for.

IMPERATO: I think the health care workers at Charity Hospital, Tulane University Medical Center, Louisiana State University Medical Center, in the Occinal Clinic (ph), the Touro Infirmary, which are the major hospitals in New Orleans, have done absolutely a heroic job in taking care of these patients.

But what is very clear is that they really have to evacuate those institutions. And they have begun to do that. Tulane and Charity have evacuated large numbers of people. FEMA is setting up 40 field hospitals. There is one already been established at the New Orleans International Airport. And so those patients and the medical staffs all have to be evacuated because there is no potable water supply and there is no sewage disposal.

COSTELLO: Some people are on oxygen and they're having to manually manipulate the oxygen machines so these people can breath.

IMPERATO: Yes. And I mean that's absolutely a heroic effort on the part of the medical staffs of those hospitals. But they cannot continue doing that for days on end. And this, the only solution is that those patients and the medical staffs have to be evacuated.

COSTELLO: Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. Might it have been a better idea to get -- and I know these patients were very sick and very hard to move -- but might it have been a better idea just to get them out of there?

IMPERATO: It's difficult to say. I trained at Tulane University Medical Center and I'm very familiar with New Orleans. Everyone always talked about the possibility of this type of disaster, but I think most people thought it would never really occur and I don't think anyone could have foreseen that it would have been a disaster of this magnitude.

So hindsight, yes. But foresight, I don't think anyone realized how bad it was going to be.

COSTELLO: We're getting a lot of e-mails in from our viewers. And I want to pose you some health questions that they have.

This is from Philip (ph). He's from Baltimore, Maryland. His sister is a medical student at Tulane. He says: "The water is up to the second floor of Tulane University Hospital. People from the Superdome are swimming to the hospital."

And you have to wonder, swimming in that dirty water, because there are bodies in the water, the sewage system isn't working properly.

So how dangerous is it for someone to swim or walk through that water at this point?

IMPERATO: There's less danger in walking or swimming through the water than in drinking the water. Clearly, people should not drink this water, because it's contaminated with sewage and it's also contaminated with chemicals that may have been washed in with the storm surge because the area around New Orleans has a very dense petrochemical industry. And so contact, you know, with the water is bad enough. But certainly people should not be drinking that water.

COSTELLO: Another question. This is from Joel from Houston. He says: "I've spent most of the evening trying to convince my family from Slidell in the Palm Lake Subdivision to stay out. They want to go back there."

There's no electricity there. There's no running water.

What are the health implications for people wanting to go back to see if their home is still standing?

IMPERATO: I think that the civil and public health authorities have to absolutely assure that people are not permitted to go back to these areas of New Orleans once they begin pumping the water out, until they have safe water supplies, the electricity has been restored and there is an operational sewage system and solid waste disposal. Because otherwise we will be putting them into harm's way.

And so even though people want to go back, they really should not be permitted to go back.

COSTELLO: As far as a long-term health concern that may affect the rest of the country, you've brought up mosquitoes.

Like how bad a problem could that become?

IMPERATO: The immediate effect of the storm surge and of flood on mosquitoes is to disrupt their breeding sites because they breed in stagnant water. So within a few weeks of a storm of this type, mosquito populations very often decline.

However, as the water stays in place for weeks and months, then they begin to breed again. But they cannot transmit disease unless there's reservoirs for those various diseases such as West Nile virus or St. Louis encephalitis. And the people in Louisiana are very accustomed to mosquito control. And I think they will bring that situation under control very quickly.

COSTELLO: Yes, but that water might stay in New Orleans for six months.

IMPERATO: It could stay that long, but the point is that it's been diluted very significantly. I mean initially it was probably very concentrated with sewage. But as more and more water flowed out of Lake Pontchartrain, there would have been a dilution effect. And so I think that they would be able to control the mosquito problem.

COSTELLO: I hope you're right.

Dr. Imperato, thank you for joining DAYBREAK this morning.

We appreciate it.

IMPERATO: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: They are the littlest victims and their story drives home the depths of the trauma in the wake of Katrina. You'll see it coming up.

And the lines are long, tempers are short and prices are high. Katrina's effect on gas still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Take a look at hurricane Katrina's impact on Georgia. More than $5 a gallon at this Atlanta gas station, and people are lining up, sometimes for hours, to fill their tanks. Take a look at the line at that gas station.

Two pipelines supplying gas to the Southeast were knocked out by the hurricane and once that word got around, people started to panic. And not just in Georgia. North Carolina's governor is stepping up to fix the situation in his state.

Carrie Lee has more in today's "Business Buzz."

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Residents in the Southeast particularly hard hit with this, Carol.

The problem is all that refinery damage pushing gas prices up even though oil prices came down a bit yesterday.

Now, the two major pipelines, the Colonial and the Plantation pipeline, that furnish gasoline for North Carolina and about 10 other states, are not operating.

As you can see on this map, the pipelines are not getting the electric supply they need to run. That's because the refineries that produce gas need repairs and they are also without electricity.

Now, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley issued a statement last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MICHAEL EASLEY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: At least in the short- term, until the electricity is restored to the pipelines and to the refineries, it appears that it will be at least the weekend before that gasoline pipeline and the refineries can have the electricity restored to them.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEE: These pipelines have not been resupplied since Sunday. Now, Easley warns of a significant gas shortage in the Southeast. He's asking citizens to cut back on unnecessary driving. But some may have no choice. Gas stations across the state began shutting down last night because they were running out of fuel supplies in Bancom County (ph). Officials say one fifth of the stations are dry.

To ensure emergency vehicles have enough gas, non-essential travel is currently suspended in North Carolina. Yesterday, the White House agreed to loan oil from the strategic supply reserve. Well, that decision helped to ease crude prices, at least in the short-term. But gasoline rallied on that lost refinery output.

Gas futures, meanwhile, are jumping nearly a $0.05 a gallon, to $2.30. That's with wholesale price. The government has eased environmental fuel regulations nationwide for two weeks to prevent more gas shortages.

Prices nonetheless continue to skyrocket. At some North Carolina stations, consumers are paying upwards, as you said, Carol, of $4 a gallon. And the emotional response to that can clearly drive prices even higher.

Katrina has shut down nine refineries in the Gulf. That's more than 80 percent of production. So huge ramifications here.

COSTELLO: Because part of the problem is once people start to panic and they start to hoard gas, that further drives the price up.

LEE: Absolutely. It's all supply and demand. You know, this is like what we saw 20 some years ago.

COSTELLO: In the '70s.

LEE: You know, people -- those long lines. Exactly. Those long lines. So this is the situation now.

COSTELLO: So what states are affected?

LEE: Most...

COSTELLO: Georgia, North Carolina...

LEE: Right. About 10 in total.

COSTELLO: Arkansas reported some problems...

LEE: Right.

COSTELLO: ... although there's no gas shortage there.

LEE: It's that whole Southeastern area. It's that whole Southeastern area. And who knows? This could cause a ripple effect even in other states, as well, and in other areas. So...

COSTELLO: So are we all going to see $4 a gallon soon? LEE: Well, well above $4 in some areas. We'll see what happens.

COSTELLO: Yes, we certainly will.

LEE: But it's over $5, pretty scary.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Carrie Lee.

LEE: OK.

COSTELLO: Moving on now, they're the victims who cannot speak for themselves. Still ahead, a story that drives home the pain and suffering inside the storm zone.

Also coming up, new dome, new home -- the evacuation of the Superdome begins with people heading by bus from New Orleans to Houston.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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