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CNN Live Saturday

Hurricane Katrina's Aftermath

Aired September 03, 2005 - 12:30   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush says more than 7,000 additional troops are on the way to Mississippi and Louisiana. They'll join the 4,000 troops and 21,000 National Guardsmen already on the ground.
Military officials say they're focusing on rescuing people in need of medical aid and on evacuating people from the city convention center. But evacuations at the Superdome are now suspended until Sunday. Some 2,000 people reportedly are still at the stadium.

All patients are now evacuated from Charity Hospital, the city's largest public medical facility. The patients were taken late last night to the New Orleans airport or to facilities in the state capital of Baton Rouge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it may be at least a month, possibly as long as 80 days, before the levees can be repaired and all the floodwaters pumped out of the city.

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Mississippi, the death toll from the storm has now risen to 147. But Governor Haley Barbour expects that number to rise.

Parts of the state are still without fresh water or electricity. But the Air Force says it will bring 300 Mississippi personnel home from Iraq and Afghanistan to help their families clean up from the storm.

HARRIS: In Alabama, federal emergency officials have agreed to open up dormitories at Fort McClellan for the evacuees. Emergency workers will have MREs, meals ready-to-eat, to hand out to storm victims. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she'll visit her home state tomorrow to get a firsthand look at all of the damage.

NGUYEN: Now, at New Orleans's Armstrong Airport, relief flights there are starting today, and they're flying in at a rate of about four an hour. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there, and he joins us now live with an update.

Ed, set the scene for what's happening right now?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we've seen here is more of the same, an endless stream of people being dropped off at the airport here. However, the numbers seem to be slowing down a little bit.

Part of that is because there were so many helicopters arriving here, dropping off evacuees from the city of New Orleans, that it was just overwhelming this entire airport. Over the last 24 hours, we have seen the entire airport ground swarmed with people who had been dropped out here, evacuated from the city, and looking to catch a flight out. Many of these people desperately needing medical attention.

Many of these people were being evacuated from hospitals, from intensive care units. They were already in need of a lot of medical attention, a lot of intense medical attention, and they had to be brought here.

Unfortunately, this is only a field hospital that FEMA has set up here. The disaster medical assistant teams that are here basically only equipped to do the very basic things to kind of keep people alive, not the kind of medicine needed to keep people in intensive care units alive, as well.

So the rush here has been to get as many of these people on flights out of here. And just a short while ago, former Vice President Al Gore landed on an American Airlines flight. We're told that he is trying to gather up about 130 critically ill patients to get them to Tennessee. That is the plan. We understand he is in a terminal right now doing that.

But the flights continue to land, helicopters, nonstop. It has been like this for almost 72 hours.

NGUYEN: Ed, you talk about the people in need of critical help there, medical help. But what about the people who are arriving who are healthy? Where do they go from the airport?

LAVANDERA: Well, basically, they're waiting to catch a flight out or a bus ride out. One portion of the terminal has been used for this field hospital.

The other portion, which is just off to our left over here, has been swarming with people. It is, to be quite frank, disgusting inside the terminal at this point.

There is trash everywhere. There are people everywhere, waiting to catch the flights out. In fact, many of the people have kind of spilled out onto the airport grass, the grass lawn here by the parking garage, waiting for any kind of direction as to when they might be able to catch their ride out of town.

NGUYEN: And do you have any idea when that ride will arrive? Are we going to see another situation there at the airport that we've seen at these other shelters?

LAVANDERA: Well, the rides have been coming frequently, perhaps not as fast as some people here would like to see, but they are coming. The crowds, at one point, they had 8,000 people around here waiting. That seems to have dropped quite a bit today.

So the flights are coming. It's just a matter of processing the thousands and thousands of people who are coming here. Some say it isn't happening fast enough, but we do see the numbers dropping today. NGUYEN: Ed Lavandera at the New Orleans airport. Thank you for that update, Ed.

HARRIS: And CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us now.

And, Jamie, I understand you have an updated number on additional troop deployments to the affected areas?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: ... have been taking off any deployment of U.S. troops to the disaster zone. They're going to be flowing in at a much heavier rate, in addition to the 7,000 active-duty troops announced by President Bush this morning, including members of the 82nd Airborne who will be arriving today in Louisiana.

The head of the National Guard Bureau announced here at the Pentagon today that the deployment of National Guard troops, which had been expected to get up to 30,000, will get up to 40,000 in another week. They're already at close to 30,000 today.

Add that together, that's 17,000 additional troops that will be in place, according to the Pentagon, within a week. Recognition here of the magnitude of the problem that they're dealing with, and no more hesitancy now to employ some of the active-duty troops in order to free up the guard for law enforcement.

And one of the interesting statements that were made today here at the Pentagon was the statement that one of the reasons it took so long to get troops in significant numbers able to deliver aid is that the Pentagon didn't anticipate having to provide as much law enforcement in Louisiana.

And General Steven Blum, lieutenant general, head of the Guard Bureau, said part of that was because of the disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. Two-thirds of the police department was not able to stay on-duty, either because they lost their homes or he said, in his case -- he said, in some cases, personal decisions, that it wasn't practical to stay on the job.

But the practical effect of that, he said, was that, with two- thirds, about 1,000 New Orleans police officers no longer in place to provide security, that meant the Pentagon had to completely change its plans. And that took longer than they initially anticipated -- Tony?

HARRIS: Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, thank you.

A few businesses in Biloxi, Mississippi, are starting to reopen, despite a lack of power across most of the southern part of the state. Chris Huntington is live in Biloxi, and he joins us now with more -- Chris?

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tony, just as Jamie McIntyre was mentioning deployment of additional forces coming to the region, a huge Chinook, the big twin-rotor choppers, flew overhead. We're seeing an increased presence from National Guard here. We are just down the street from Keesler Air Force Base here in Biloxi. And that is the home base for some 300 Air Force servicemen and women who will be brought back from Iraq, as well as an additional hundred who are detailed here to Kessler who will not be deployed to Iraq so that they can help with the situation here.

Biloxi, one of the hardest hit areas along the Mississippi coast. Along the shorefront road here, total devastation for these homes. They are beginning -- beginning -- to get through the wreckage and try to get things back in order.

Fuel shortage has been critical around here for the last couple of days. And Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has been very, very outspoken about that.

We believe the situation is improving every day. We do see additional gas stations coming online and the lines getting a little bit shorter. The general sense of concern -- I won't say full panic -- about gasoline seems to be subsiding. People seem to be getting the fuel they need.

Diesel fuel also essential for generators, because, again, power outages are throughout the area here. And you just can't rely on it.

Earlier, Betty, you mentioned the official count of the deceased, those who perished in the storm, at 147. The locals here believe that that number will go a lot higher.

One crucial problem, though, and that is, the removal of the dead is not going as rapidly as some people would like. We spoke to some folks just up the street here who, frankly, showed us a deceased neighbor who was wedged under a porch.

And they had been told that only a local coroner could actually remove the body, even though emergency officials had identified the location and had marked it as such. The removal of that body is up to the local coroner, and, as you can imagine, the coroner here in Biloxi is overwhelmed. They described at one point finding 25 bodies washed up in an area not far from here.

Again, Biloxi, Mississippi, very hard hit. We've been to Gulfport down the way. Waveland, Mississippi, perhaps the hardest hit area in the Mississippi, absolutely demolished for as much as a mile inland.

One last thing I want to point out here, the casino, the coastline casinos, here in Biloxi, especially, a huge part of the local economy. That is completely off-line, out of business, these giant floating casinos, which are required by law that they actually be floating on the water, essentially just tossed up here like little tiny row boats all over the place. They are out of business.

Harrah's Casino, we understand, will pay its employees for a period of time. But it will be many, many months, and perhaps longer than that, before they can even begin the process of rebuilding. Situation improving here in Biloxi, but a long way to go. Back to you.

HARRIS: Chris Huntington. Chris, thank you.

NGUYEN: Now, if you're trying to find a loved one misplaced by Hurricane Katrina, we will show you one place online that can help. You want to stay tuned for that. We're going to take a short break and be and right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: As you've been hearing over and over again, many people are still searching for missing relatives. Some have been seen posting their pleas on the Web site EyesOnKatrina.blogspot.com.

Now, the site is sponsored by the "Biloxi Sun Herald" newspaper. And joining us now is "Biloxi Sun Herald" staff writer Don Hammack to talk about this blog.

First of all, why did you set it up?

DON HAMMACK, "BILOXI SUN HERALD": Well, we started it up about four hurricanes ago. We had three fairly moderate ones, certainly nothing compared to this. And it was just a way to try and get some more information out to people.

We were much more successful last three storms, being able to get it out to the local populace. This time, it's more of trying to get it out to the world and trying to get it out maybe to relatives outside the area who can get in touch with their people back here, because local communications are in shambles.

NGUYEN: What kind of traffic are you getting on this site? I imagine there are thousands upon thousands just seeking information.

HAMMACK: We've had more traffic on SunHerald.com in the last -- since Sunday than the last three months combined.

NGUYEN: Wow.

HAMMACK: We're getting huge amounts of volume. I think on Wednesday we had 1.5 million page views.

NGUYEN: My goodness.

HAMMACK: And the numbers are steady, and people are staying on the site a long time. And we've got our main site at SunHerald.com, and we've got the blog, where we're trying to get out up-to-the-minute news and as much information as we can, along with message boards for people to kind of locate their family members and kind of give a central location to try and get some information around.

There are people passing damage reports back and forth and things like that. Over 32,000 guests, I think, have registered on there. NGUYEN: So people, when they're searching for their loved ones, and they log on in this, and try to get that information out there, have you seen that your site is helping connect these families?

HAMMACK: The first e-mail I read this morning when I woke up was somebody saying that they had gotten in touch with a loved one. And I believe that was done through our message boards.

There's all kind of message boards out there doing it, and we're trying to promote them all, because somebody's name might be on one and not on another. And, you know, it's all about getting out information and doing the right thing, trying to help some people out.

NGUYEN: Don, you've been monitoring this for the past few days. Tell me about some of the stories that you're hearing, especially ones that really stuck out in your mind?

HAMMACK: A lot of the stories we're getting are from outsiders who are, you know, past residents who have family down here, are really worried, and really some incredibly moving pieces, you know, worried about their husbands, or sons, or daughters, or in-laws.

And just people kind of dumping their guts out for everybody to see, because they don't have anything else they can do. It's just a way to kind of, you know, cope with what's going on, because it's bad for a lot of people here. It's bad for a lot of people all over the place who don't know, you know, what's going on down here.

The communications are just a disaster. And nobody knows, you know, who is where. And we just got to kind of gut it out until we get past it.

NGUYEN: Very true. And just quickly for those who want to log on and get that information out and search for loved ones, tell us the Web site?

HAMMACK: You can go to SunHerald.com. We've got links to multimedia and all kinds of things. I just had them put up an amazing interview with a guy who was down in Waveland, and they're just begging for help down there, really need it badly. And it's all you can do to get through some of this stuff, SunHerald.com.

HAMMACK: As you can see from the shot -- SunHerald.com -- the shot that we're seeing right now, the devastation is everywhere down there.

Don Hammack, with the "Biloxi Sun Herald," thank you for what you're doing, and thank you for your time today -- Tony?

HAMMACK: You're welcome.

HARRIS: And this just into CNN. Let's take you back to New Orleans now. One of our producers, CNN producer Carey Bodenheimer, is on the phone with us right now, and she is on Canal Street, the site of what we understand, Carey, to be a huge fire.

What can you tell us?

CAREY BODENHEIMER, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: We can't really tell whether it's a huge fire or not. It's inside the Canal Place Mall, which is -- it's a foot of Canal Street in New Orleans, just on the border of the central business district in the French Quarter.

But firefighters have redoubled their efforts, tried to get in the building and battle the blaze. They have been trying to get at this fire all day, but haven't had any water truck in the area that have come in from Mississippi that have phone utility, Southern Bell.

People, water on the New Orleans side of -- so they can try to put out some of these fires that are raging all over the city.

HARRIS: And, Carey, is it just one building involved or are there multiple buildings involved in this fire?

BODENHEIMER: Well, this building is sort of a complex. It attaches to a Wyndham Hotel and also to a big retail area, basically at the foot of Canal Street and it's very close to the aquarium and to the river, as well. Anyone who's been to the city of New Orleans will have probably passed this.

HARRIS: I see. And the issue for firefighters right now is water, getting enough water to fight it?

BODENHEIMER: I didn't hear your question very well. I think it was about water. But they have had to pump in -- they've had to drive in tanker trucks with water for the fire department to use, because they cannot get water out of river because their resources are so (inaudible) and deployed so far and wife over the city of New Orleans.

HARRIS: OK, Carey. How ironic in a city flooded, water is the issue in getting these fires out.

All right. Be sure to watch CNN tonight, 8:00 eastern, for a special three-hour edition of "LARRY KING LIVE." Find out how you can help. Larry is joined by Eric Clapton, Magic Johnson, Harry Connick, Jr., Celine Dion, Sela Ward, Bill Cosby, Teri Hatcher and more. It's all about how you can help. That's "LARRY KING LIVE" tonight at 8:00 eastern.

A quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: As you can imagine, thousands are finding shelter, but many more will be in need of jobs. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao joins us now on the phone from Washington, D.C., to talk about this.

I understand a grant has been made of $62.1 million. Tell us where that money's going to be used.

ELAINE CHAO, U.S. SECRETARY OF LABOR: I've just signed off on a national emergency grant of up to about $62 million to help Louisiana recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. And just the other day, yesterday, I signed off on a $50 million grant, national emergency grant, to Mississippi to help Biloxi and the devastated area there.

Governor Haley Barbour has been doing a great job, offering very, very decisive leadership. And we've been working with all the governors in the area.

But basically, this national emergency grant is going to provide about 20,000-plus temporary jobs in Louisiana, in Alabama and Mississippi to help in the cleanup and the recovery of the devastated communities.

And it's going to do another thing, as well. It's going to mean paychecks for dislocated workers. And it will put money in their pockets, and it will also offer them the opportunity to participate in the cleanup of their own community.

NGUYEN: Rebuilding their own community.

CHAO: Right now...

NGUYEN: Let me ask you this, though. You're talking about 20,000 temporary jobs in Louisiana and Mississippi. When will these be available? Of course, many people are still trying to evacuate a lot of these areas. And how will they get to those jobs?

CHAO: That's a very, very important point. We basically are -- one of the basic challenges that we have is to communicate all these systems that we have available. Let me mention two others, and it's all tied into the same distribution channel.

We have also unemployment insurance available and also disaster unemployment assistance. What's happening now is, you know, the waters rose so quickly that people just fled pretty much with the clothes on their backs.

So a lot of people just need money. They need financial resources. If they've got, you know, kin folks outside of the devastated communities, they may not be able to go to stay with their relatives or their friends because they don't have money.

So the first thing we've got to do is to get people some -- just money in their pockets, and that...

NGUYEN: So how do you do that when they're in shelters, people have fled from families' homes, how do you do that?

CHAO: Oh, I know. I know. And sometimes they don't have any -- there is no radio. There is no television. There is no Internet.

NGUYEN: Right.

CHAO: So what we are doing, we are dispatching hundreds of people, workers and volunteers, to basically walk through neighborhood by neighborhood, parish by parish, after the waters recede. We are also asking teams of staff to canvass hospitals, churches, other sites with basically laptops to take claims where phones are available. And if anyone is near a phone, there is a toll-free number that is manned 24/7, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And the toll- free number is 1-866-4-USA-DOL.

They can also, if there's any access to Web sites, they can also go on our Web site, www.Dol.gov.

NGUYEN: Yes, we have that number up on the screen. Let me ask you this very quickly.

CHAO: May I make one further...

NGUYEN: Yes, go ahead.

CHAO: You do not have to go back to your home community to access unemployment insurance or disaster unemployment assistance or these grants. Basically, you can call the toll-free number, and we'll help you file whatever you need.

NGUYEN: That's a very important point to make.

Now, for those jobs, I know people watching thinking, "Great, they're available when we're able to get to them. That's wonderful." But how much are they paying?

CHAO: That varies by each state. And so it will be up to 26 weeks. And they will -- you know, it will also, through the national emergency grant, will also offer additional income support through, like, child care, transportation, relocation, commuting expenses.

So there's a whole -- our great challenge at this point is to let people know about the tremendous array of assistance. And it's also very -- it's almost custom-tailored to what the person needs.

So what they need to do first and foremost is somehow find one of our volunteers, call the toll-free number, get on our Web site. That's really important. I might also...

(CROSSTALK)

NGUYEN: We need to put that toll-free number back up on the screen...

CHAO: Yes, we got to do that.

NGUYEN: ... so people can get that in their hands and make those calls. And one more time, quickly, Secretary, this is available right now?

CHAO: Yes, it is. And let me also say, if you are a small business person, you're self-employed. Let's say you're a taxi driver. You can no longer apply your livelihood because of the devastation, you can also be eligible. So, again, you know, if you're independent, if you're newly hired, and you're not ordinarily eligible for unemployment insurance, or if you are a self-employed person and you're not normally eligible for unemployment insurance, we have set up a disaster unemployment assistance program to help those people with income support, as well.

So that toll-free number is real important. Call that toll-free number. There are people there 24/7 ready to be of help. We also have teams of people, again, canvassing neighborhoods as the waters recede, going to hospitals, churches, other non-profit organizations, with laptops to try to take claims where homes are not available.

NGUYEN: Good information there, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

I want to tell you that number one more time. It's on the screen at the bottom. Write it down. 1-8-6-6-4-U-S-A-D-O-L for job information -- Tony?

HARRIS: We're going to take a quick break and come back with more of our continuing coverage of the aftermath of Katrina.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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