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American Morning
Hurricane Katrina
Aired September 04, 2005 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Miles O'Brien. Two big stories this morning -- the aftermath of Katrina and breaking news from Washington. Chief Justice William Rehnquist has died after a long battle with cancer. An institution in Washington, he served more than 30 years on the Supreme Court. We're live in Washington where the president will speak about the chief justice this morning.
Soledad?
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Soledad O'Brien, live for you in New Orleans. This is what is left of New Orleans after storm and flood and five days of chaos. The shift now though is in finding the bodies. We'll have a look at that this morning. We'll live throughout the city for you -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: And a dire prediction that it will take as long as nine months for New Orleans to be dry. Once again, everything depends on those levees. We get a rare look at the critical repairs on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Good morning. We'll have complete coverage about the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in just a moment. But before we do that, let's say hello to Soledad on Common Street in New Orleans.
Soledad, good morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles, good morning to you. Yes, you know, before sunrise here, 6:00 local time, so it's dark, the only people out here us and some pretty big rats we've seen running around. In large part, that's due to the garbage that's piled up. Of course, no one's come through to clean up yet.
Some part of that is due to frankly the bodies. There are going to be many bodies recovered. That's sort of the phase 2 now, as most of the evacuees have left this city.
Kind of strange, Miles. It's sort of like a ghost town. Keep in mind we're just a stone's throw from Canal Street. This would normally be on a weekend, a very bustling area. And it's not. And it's very creepy. We're going to talk more about that this morning, ahead. Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Soledad. We'll get back to you very shortly. Thank you very much.
Turning now to the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist died last night at the age of 80, the first sitting justice to die in more than 50 years. Joe Johns at the Supreme Court for us this morning. Joe, early reaction coming in just now, isn't it?
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Reaction through the night, in fact Miles, from a number of senators, all expressing their condolences. This was a long battle with cancer for the chief justice.
As you said, he is one of the chief justices who has died in office. In fact, most of the chief justices now have died in office. Just over half, in fact. We were moving just toward his 81st birthday. He's one of the longest serving chief justices, the fourth longest serving chief justice.
He continued to perform his duties until a precipitous decline in his health over the last several days. That was a court statement coming out last night.
Of course, one of the big questions now is what this does to the timing of the court. The court is expected to go back to business on October 3rd. We also have, as you know, the hearings for John Roberts, who has been named as a Supreme Court justice. Those were scheduled to begin in fact on Tuesday just kicking off.
There are some questions as to whether they'll go forward with that. Nothing confirmed as yet. Official Washington still trying to get its act together. This will be the first time since 1971 that there have been two seats open on the court at the same time. Miles, back to you.
M. O'BRIEN: Joe Johns, thank you very much. Let's go to the White House now. National correspondent Bob Franken is there. Bob, what are we hearing from President Bush, if anything at this point?
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're going to be hearing from him in about three hours. Approximately he'll be making a statement. The White House put out a statement last night, calling the loss of Rehnquist "a tremendous loss for our nation."
Now the president has some major decisions to make. First of all, who will replace Rehnquist? Will he elevate somebody within the Supreme Court? If that occurs, there would be three confirmation hearings going on, perhaps going at the same time. That would be unprecedented.
Now the possibility also exists that the full court will not be constituted by the time that it gets together October 3rd. As a matter of fact, that's almost a certainty.
The question is, will the cases go forward? The answer is yes. The justices who hear them will decide what the final rulings are. So there's a lot that has to be decided in the next few days. And this is a presidency, of course, that's already weighted down very heavily with all that's going on with Hurricane Katrina -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Bob Franken at the White House, thank you. We'll get back to you a little bit later in the program.
Let's get back now to New Orleans and Soledad. Good morning, again, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks. Let's show a map so you can exactly where we are. We're in the heart of New Orleans. We are right now on Common Street, which is right next to Canal Street. That's the main drag. Lots of the big hotels are on this block as well.
Remember, we were talking a little bit about the fire yesterday. That's taking place not very far at all from where we are. We could actually see when we pulled up some of the smoke.
Let's walk around. This is the Pelham Hotel. I should say this is what's left of the Pelham Hotel right here. We're not going to go too far because this area's kind of covered in rats. And a lot of that is because there's garbage.
This scene, not even particularly bad from what we've seen. In many cases, rubble everywhere when buildings just out and out collapsed.
And garbage piled up by the thousands. And tens of thousands of people who are forced to live on the streets until they waited for some kind of help. Most of those evacuees, though, have left town. And that, in and of itself, is sort of a strange thing because we don't see anybody.
I mean, keep in mind this is the middle of a very normally bustling, busy touristy street. And nobody's out here.
My colleague, Jeff Koinange's been covering this story for us as well. We want to bring him in because he's reporting on what's happening here. Jeff, good morning. I know you were covering a lot of the fire, which essentially was left to burn out of control.
The sense that I get is that this is now essentially a ghost town.
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is indeed. And it's so eerily empty. You look around here, you see nobody -- during the daytime, in the middle of the day, as you were saying, you'd expect thousands of people in the streets of New Orleans. Nobody, a ghost town. It's so eerie almost.
S. O'BRIEN: You know, there are people here, though. And I was sort of surprised to see that not everybody has evacuated. There's some who are going to camp out and stay.
KOINANGE: Yes, there are those who say if we go to Houston, if we go out of state, what's going to happen to our homes? We need to stay so that if the -- when the water eventually goes down, we want to go back and see what's left of our homes?
And also, other people who have lost family members, where are they? How do we get in touch with them? They are afraid of that. So we have to be careful. We have to make sure that they stay, so they can go back to their homes. S. O'BRIEN: You've been reporting on this story. I want to introduce folks to your piece. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE (voice-over): Victims of Hurricane Katrina, tired of waiting for government help, seek answers from a higher authority.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a wake-up call for New Orleans. New Orleans is a sinful city. We got (INAUDIBLE).
KOINANGE: Others tried to find justification for the country's worst natural disaster in over a century.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel -- now I'm tired of this. That's all I tried to -- I'm just -- I just can't take nothing more.
KOINANGE: While others still simply tried to cope with a disaster that's left hundreds, possibly thousands dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't feel depressed. And I don't feel let down, because God does everything for a reason and for a purpose that his name may be glorified.
KOINANGE: These are the tired, the old, the hungry, and most of all, the frustrated and angry residents of New Orleans, who'd been sleeping under the stars for nearly a week waiting to be evacuated.
The conditions here were harsh. No running water, no sanitation, no food for five days. Many, like self-employed businessman Monroe Hodgkins, lost everything.
MONROE HODGKINS, SURVIVOR: I have nothing. I have lost everything myself. I have one pair of pants, one shirt, and one pair of shoes.
KOINANGE: That's when he and this man, Stanley Rasmuss, came up with a plan. They started a soup kitchen and admit to taking food and other groceries from nearly supermarkets, but only, they insist, to help feed the hungry.
They have managed to provide three miles a day to hundreds in addition to taking care of the elderly and sick in this abandoned hotel. Rasmuss insists charity begins at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're taxpayers, man. They treat us like dogs, because they're sending all that money over there to Iraq, taking care of that. They can't take care of their own country, man.
KOINANGE: His friend sums up the feelings of many here, who feel let down by their leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be the richest country in the world, this is a disgrace. How can you take care of other countries when you cannot take care of home? Is this racist? Is this a racist statement that you're making? Come on, take care of us. We need you. Our people have fought, have died, have built this country.
KOINANGE: Now it's his people who will have to rebuild a battered city, while trying to rebuild their own shattered lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE: And Soledad, seems like that. The power of the human spirit in times of adversity, unbelievable. These folks had nothing today, and they decide to step up to the plate and help their own.
S. O'BRIEN: Some people seem both horribly upset that they had to even do it, but also incredibly proud that they managed to survive and do it.
Of course, things move now into the next phase. There will be many bodies recovered here. I mean, you can smell them sometimes.
KOINANGE: Exactly.
S. O'BRIEN: As I see them.
KOINANGE: I was about to see that. The stench of death is everywhere. We're going to be walking around downtown where the flooding is. Sometimes the water's way up to here. And I'm sure out there, there are still bodies. And once they start floating and rotting, it's going to be in everything.
S. O'BRIEN: Jeff Koinange, nice to see you. Nice to work with you over the last couple of days. And we'll see much more of you. Thanks, Jeff.
Let's get a look at the weather this morning with Bonnie Schneider. She's going to tell us about another hurricane, Hurricane Maria, Bonnie? Is that right? Good morning.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right, good morning, Soledad. This is the fifth hurricane of this busy tropical season, but the good news with Maria, this hurricane does not pose a threat to the U.S. mainland. I'm so happy to be able to report that. The storm is moving to the northwest, but it turned to the north and eventually to the northeast is expected.
So Maria is a hurricane, but it luckily is moving away from us. Here it is in our satellite perspective. We are watching some other areas of disturbed weather, like this little area of clouds here off the coast of Florida and the Bahamas for further tropical development. But right now, things are looking good.
Now across the country, for this holiday weekend, some cooler conditions in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures in the 60s for highs and down into the 50s for lows.
Elsewhere across the country, this big high pressure ridge is really affecting a good portion of the U.S. It's bringing in some warm temperatures, actually quite hot to the nation's mid section with highs in the 90s into parts of Oklahoma and into Missouri. But on the flip side of that, these cool winds from the northwest will bring about some very pleasant conditions. Excellent beach weather from Maine, down through Maryland, into the Carolinas for your Labor Day weekend. So some good weather for a lot of folks for this holiday weekend -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Bonnie Schneider. Appreciate that. We're going to take a break. When we come back, you saw what it's like on Common Street in New Orleans. It's virtually a ghost town. So where are all the people? Well, a good number of them are at the New Orleans Airport. We'll tell you how that facility is handling a lot of the medical care needs, plus some elderly aged and infirmed people when CNN's AMERICAN MORNING continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Live picture of New Orleans on this morning. A burned out building near the French Quarter, the city desolate and a ghost town. And in that sense, I guess a bit of good news because the evacuation has continued with some success. There are some of the critical issues that we want to tell you about facing Katrina survivors right now. The New Orleans Superdome is now empty. The federal government says more than 40,000 evacuees are now out of the city. More than 200,000 of them are in Texas. And that state's governor says they may not be able to handle any more.
Army engineers trying to plug those big breaches in the levees. They say, though, it will take 36 days at the very least from the time they start the pumps until the water would be gone from city streets.
Some of the water is up to 20 feet deep. Let's get back to Soledad in New Orleans.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks. You know, by Saturday afternoon, it was really down to the remaining few. Maybe few hundred by some estimates. There were rumors that there are buses that had arrived to take people out of town. And even the most reluctant, because they were finally seeing the military, finally got the courage to get out and head for some of those buses. It kind of gave them a psychological boost, if you will.
People were getting on the buses, though. They had no idea where they were heading. The drivers wouldn't say, and in fact they wouldn't tell us either. Still, every single person has gathered up their things and headed for a bus that they were just glad to get out, and get out anywhere.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: How long you been walking like this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Since Tuesday.
S. O'BRIEN: Pushing a shopping cart?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Slept on the interstate one night. Slept here one night. And been down at the other place.
S. O'BRIEN: Why aren't you getting on one of the buses? Aren't there buses...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to get it on now. Oh, yes, we're getting out of here.
S. O'BRIEN: Seven year old Somage Falls mother is in prison. So she camped out at the convention center with her two aunts.
Has it been scary? Can you tell me what that's like?
SOMAGE FALLS, CHILD SURVIVOR: They have dead people up in the bathrooms and stuff.
S. O'BRIEN: Vietnam vet Ron Tingle.
RON TINGLE: I suffering from chronic post traumatic stress disorder. And I just been just sitting still. I don't have medication. I haven't had some since Tuesday. And I'm having flashbacks. It's been tough.
S. O'BRIEN: Where's home? Where's home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anywhere but here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Anywhere but here is pretty much what they're looking for right now.
So the city's kind of empty. It has an empty feel. When you walk down the streets, there's nobody around, virtually nobody. But of course, where these folks are going, it's a much different story. Let's get to Ed Lavandera, because he is at New Orleans International Airport.
Ed, good morning.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. You know, you were hearing yesterday -- and the scene is completely different. Changing dramatically in the last day or so, where there once was about 8,000 people waiting to catch flights out and buses out of this city, the process here has moved along so quickly that there is virtually no one left here.
The buzzing of helicopters seems to have stopped for now. We imagine and suspect that there still might be some people who continue to be brought in here.
But over the last four days, this has been a place of high drama, if you will. There have been so many people just minutes after being plucked off rooftops or from street -- New Orleans streets or from wherever they might have been, they were brought -- many of them were brought through here. Thousands and thousands of people. And we really saw the process only being streamlined yesterday afternoon, where the much larger National Guard presence and a lot more orderly as these people were taken out of here, and put on flights to be taken out of this city.
Now where they ended up is -- runs the gamut. They were taken to Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, all over the country. The next logistical nightmare will perhaps be making sure that all of these people get back to New Orleans, if they choose to do so -- Soledad?
S. O'BRIEN: That's going to be a huge thing, I would imagine, to tackle, Ed, because from what I could tell yesterday, no one's actually keeping any logs of people. There's no registry of people who are coming through, if they're sort of having them enter, and then kind of shunting them onto the next thing.
I think we've lost...
LAVANDERA: I did notice that there was some -- keeping some manifests of people getting on the flights, but the officials here acknowledge that they're very behind on the logs in making -- in keeping track of where everyone wants, giving that into some sort of computerized system.
So as I mentioned, I think that's why it's going to be a huge logistical nightmare in the weeks ahead.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, fair to say. Ed Lavandera for us. Ed, thanks a lot. We'll check in with you again.
Let's get right back to Miles in New York -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Thanks, Soledad. Still to come, a close-up look at a critical levee as it is being repaired. Alina Cho takes us to the 17th Street levee breach. It's a big job trying to fix it. We'll show you how they're trying to do. AMERICAN MORNING continues in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: In New Orleans as we speak, core of engineers crews are working 24/7, trying to breach that 500 foot gap in the 17th Street Canal. That breach, which sort of started the dominoes tumbling, in which ultimately they led to New Orleans being flooded and the catastrophe that we have seen there.
CNN's Alina Cho got an exclusive look at the process of trying to fix that gap. Not an easy job. She joins us now from Baton Rouge.
Alina, it must be fascinating as they try to figure this out?
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It certainly was, Miles. Extraordinary to see it close up. And I can tell you, in order to fix those levees, these construction workers are going to work a lot of long hours. They already have. And it's going to take a lot of hard work. As you mentioned, yes, I was there at the 17th Street Canal, a levee breach. We were escorted by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. And I can tell you the first thing we noticed when we got there was just the enormous roar of Blackhawk helicopters. I know you have heard this sound yourself, Miles, being down here.
But these Blackhawk helicopters are essentially flying in a circle. They are going. They're picking up these 3,000 pound sandbags and then dropping them off in that 500 foot breach in the 17th Street Canal levee.
It's a process that takes about a minute. I can tell you by late yesterday afternoon, one DOT official told me they had dropped about 150 sandbags in all. They started their work on Tuesday. And essentially, this is how it works. They are placing the sandbags delicately down. They're dropping them. And that, along with huge slabs of concrete, will serve as a temporary fix until they can build or rebuild that retaining wall.
They hope to have the 17th Street Canal levee fixed by Monday night, tomorrow night. And at that point, they can begin the equally hard work of pumping the water out of the city.
And as we have been hearing, that is a process that will take up to 80 days.
Now a little bit about the history of the levee system in New Orleans. The last time there was a breach was back in 1965 during Hurricane Betsy. At that point, Louisiana officials decided to rebuild the levees higher and stronger, but they were only meant to withstand a Category 3 Storm. Hurricane Katrina was, of course, a Category 4. And one more final note, Miles, a Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers will be in the area later today. They will first come here to Baton Rouge for briefings. And then, they will move on to New Orleans. And I can tell you that those kinds of visits, especially from federal officials, do a lot to boost morale -- Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Alina, do you have the sense that people are fairly optimistic about the possibility that this sandbagging effort will work?
CHO: Well, they are. Certainly they say it's going to take some time. I can tell you when we were there yesterday, I was quite surprised to hear that they had dropped more than 100 sandbags to date, because as you saw, I believe you saw in the video, when they're dropping the sandbags, it essentially just drops in the water and they disappear. So it doesn't look like there is much progress.
But of course, it is slowly building. And they expect to fix it by tomorrow night, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Alina, about how deep is the canal there?
CHO: They were saying that it's going to be a very, very long process. I can't tell you exactly how deep it is, but I can tell you hey started working on Tuesday non-stop. One construction worker told me that he had worked 70 hours straight, slept a couple of hours in his car.
And he is from the New Orleans area. And told me that he is glad to be there, of course, doing the hard work, fixing that. He said he wanted to be able to go home and tell his five-year old son that daddy came here and fixed New Orleans, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A piece of history. All right, Alina Cho in Baton Rouge. Thank you very much.
Still to come on the program, the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the lesser known story of what Katrina did to Mississippi. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien. We're coming to you live from New Orleans where clearly, there is much work to be done in the cleanup. Same story in Mississippi. They are equally angry there, but for a little bit of a different reason. Miles will update you on that situation in just a few moments. Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much Soledad.
Let's turn back now to the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist coming two months after Sandra Day O'Connor's announcement she would resign once a successor was found. Rehnquist's death allows President Bush to shape the direction of the Supreme Court for a long time to come. Joining me now is CNN senior legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin. I didn't say that exactly right. What O'Connor said was, when someone is confirmed to replace me, she would resign. So technically, she is still on the court.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not technically. In real life she is still a Supreme Court justice. So there is really only one vacancy on the court now and in the complicated machinations that may come, that may prove to be significant and we may not have seen the last of Sandra Day O'Connor as a justice on the court.
M. O'BRIEN: So let's try to walk through this. It's a lot of -- it's quite a few wickets here. First of all, we've got the Roberts' hearings that are supposed it happen this week.
TOOBIN: Correct.
M. O'BRIEN: Will they happen this week, out of respect for what's going on in the world?
TOOBIN: There was some talk last week about postponing them in wake of Katrina. Chairman of the committee Specter said, no, we're going to proceed. Now there is, of course, Chief Justice Rehnquist's death. Do they delay them out of respect for him? Possibly, do they delay them because President Bush might want to name Roberts chief justice which would be slightly different hearings. Or, President Bush may say, look I want the hearings to proceed as scheduled. Let's confirm John Roberts as an associate justice before the first Monday in October when the court reconvenes and then deal with the chief justice vacancy.
M. O'BRIEN: Wouldn't there be some political advantage to separating those two things, because once you start -- two things going. They sort of get lumped together. If one of the nominees happens to be more controversial than the other that could spill over into the other hearing.
TOOBIN: That could or all the controversy could get focused on the one person and the other one would have completely clear sailing. That's sort of what happened in 1986, which Justice Scalia was named to replace William Rehnquist, who was named to be chief justice. The chief justice nomination was quite controversial. Scalia had no controversy at all.
M. O'BRIEN: But there is a scenario here where you could have three hearings underway, one for the chief justice and then two justice positions.
TOOBIN: That's right. If there was a promotion from within the court, you would have two associate justice vacancies and a chief justice vacancy.
O'BRIEN: Wow. All right. So I think I'm sort of less confused.
TOOBIN: Doing my best.
O'BRIEN: Let's remind people. How important is this job of chief justice? There's a lot of symbolism here.
TOOBIN: The symbolism, a lot of people refer to him as chief justice of the Supreme Court. That's not his title. He is chief justice of the United States. He is symbolically the head of the judicial branch. However, his power is not that great. He only has one vote. His chief power is that he can assign who writes the opinions when he's in the majority of a Supreme Court decision. That's a significant power, but it's not that great a power. So it's a symbolic power more than a real power in the chief justice position.
M. O'BRIEN: As we look back on the legacy of Chief Justice Rehnquist and his times, he was as much as anything successful because of the times, because it was conservative times and he was a conservative justice.
TOOBIN: And I think what he did is he stopped the liberal revolution that had been going on in the supreme court under Earl Warren and to a certain extent under Warren Berger. He did not move the courts substantially to the right on the issues that people think about as the big issues, abortion. He was in the minority in Roe v. Wade. He's been in the minority for 30 years. On separation of church and state, yes, the wall between church and state lowered somewhat, but it's still there. On the death penalty, he had some success in getting the death penalty restarted, but in recent years the court has moved towards limiting executions again. So, yes, he has had many successes, but on a lot of the big issues, the court remains very much in the center.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. It's fascinating stuff. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
TOOBIN: Lots of developments to come.
M. O'BRIEN: Lots to follow. Jeff Toobin, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Let's go back to Soledad in New Orleans. Good morning again.
S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Miles, good morning again. You know, you were talking just a moment ago with Alina about fixing the levee. Clearly, there's lots to fix in New Orleans. Take a look at this, just an infrastructure failure as the entire wall of bricks here collapsed and collapsed with cars underneath. Also, lots of damage from the looting that followed in the flood's wake as well. Many questions, though, now, about what it's going to cost. Some estimates range in the $100 billion range. And should the city actually be rebuilt just the way it was? Those questions lie ahead.
You know, there is very much damage, and not really similar damage in the sense of, that we're obviously in a big city, but there's damage, too, in Mississippi and people there are very angry, because in some ways they haven't gotten as much of the attention as they've gotten here in New Orleans. Chris Huntington is at St. Mark's Episcopal Church. That's in Gulfport. And they're going to have a service today. The service is going to take place on the floor of the church because pretty much that's all they have left. Of course Chris, one has to wonder, how are the folks who live around there and attend that church actually going to get in? Good morning.
CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Soledad, good morning. You're looking at what is left of St. Mark's Episcopal Church. It's the oldest Episcopal Church in this part of Mississippi, founded in 1846. The chairs and what you see of sort of the altar bar have been reestablished there by the local parishioners. There's a flag behind me here I assume put up by the minister, sort of a sentinel to folks who hopefully could make it here for worship. They're planning now a service here in about three hours.
I have to say, it's extraordinarily difficult to get here. The road, the beachfront road here, highway 90, is impassable and frankly cut off and made unavailable to normal traffic by the military checkpoints. We were escorted here by a police escort this morning. There are only a couple of roads in here, but I'm sure that the parishioners here, if they know about this, will try to make their way here.
This part of the coast of Mississippi, we are about equal distance between downtown Gulfport to the west and downtown Biloxi to the east of me here, absolutely flattened. Every man-made structure, every human-made element to this coastline has been destroyed. About the only thing left standing perhaps, is natural justice in this, are these magnificent oak trees that go up and down this coastline.
The folks here, Soledad, as you mentioned here in Mississippi, are a little bit peeved. They feel that they're perhaps not getting the full attention that they deserve. This entire coastline of Mississippi has been devastated, particularly the major industries here, the casino industry, absolutely out of business. The shrimping industry, based in Biloxi, is paralyzed in the sense that all of the shrimp boats in the local fleet went way up the back bay into then what's called big lake behind the peninsula of Biloxi. They're trapped there now because a bridge has collapsed behind them. The boats are in a jumbled mess. They can't get out, who knows in fact what is available in those Gulf waters now, which appear perhaps ironically serene.
This area will take untold billions to repair. One thing that's occurred to us, of course, is that every aspect of debris that basically goes in about a mile for a 50-mile stretch of coast will have to be taken up and put somewhere. It's a monumental, you know, litter pile. That's going to be a whole headache in itself. Soledad?
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah. Sounds as if the devastation across the state is just pretty remarkable. Chris Huntington for us this morning. Chris, thanks a lot.
Let's get over to Betty Nguyen now. She's got a look at some of the other stories related to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina that are making news today. Good morning, Betty.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. Every hour we are bringing you the most critical issues facing Katrina survivors, including security, food and water, medical, relocation, levees. We're calling it "Mission Critical" and we start with the situation in Texas. Officials worry the state is near the breaking point when it comes to accepting evacuees from hurricane Katrina. Texas is providing shelter for more than 220,000 people, including people staying in hotels and motels. But Governor Rick Perry says the state will do all that it can. Still, though, he wants to make sure resources aren't stretched too thin.
Also, arrangements have been made to use three luxury cruise ships to help shelter hurricane evacuees. FEMA is chartering the boats from Carnival cruise lines for the next six months. Two of the ships will be docked in Galveston, Texas, the other in Mobile, Alabama. The three ships combined can hold about 7,000 people.
Adding to the misery in Mississippi, reports of a possible dysentery outbreak at a shelter in Biloxi. The Associated Press says about 40 people have been treated for vomiting and diarrhea. Doctors fear the people fell ill after drinking tainted water.
We want to check back on the weather now. Bonnie Schneider is at the CNN center with the latest on what is happening outside. Good morning, Bonnie.
SCHNEIDER: Good morning, Betty. That's right. We have another hurricane to contend with. But the good news is, hurricane Maria is not posing a threat to the U.S. mainland, just the fifth hurricane of this busy tropical season. The maximum winds with Maria, 75 miles per hour. It's out into the Atlantic and is moving away from the U.S., so some good news there.
Also great news for this holiday weekend, if you're on the east coast. High pressure is moving in. It's bringing about some beautiful conditions. We have low humidity, cool mornings but really warm afternoons into the 70s and 80s. Temperatures are starting to heat up, though, in the center of the country. This high as it slides to the east is bringing about some warmer flows. So when we check high temperatures for today you can see it's pretty hot in the nation's midsection. St. Louis, up to 90 degrees and then back out westward towards Denver, we'll see a high of 90. Dallas certainly will be hot at 95 and very warm and steamy, unfortunately, for the Gulf coast region where humidity will be a big factor in the way it feels outside. But out on the east and really on the west coast as well, a pretty nice holiday weekend. Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Bonnie.
Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, children separated from their parents. There are really hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stories like this right now. We're going to talk to somebody who cares about children, makes it her job, in Houston, and ask what's being done to try to reunite families? Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I'm (INAUDIBLE) and I'm searching for five of my family members. It's the Miranda (ph) family. We're staying at 10018 Ashfork, Houston, Texas. The phone number is 285- 477-6558. Please call us. We are worried desperately. Thank you.
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M. O'BRIEN: As families scramble to escape the devastated Gulf, many children now separated from their parents and on their own. The Houston Astrodome, one of the main evacuation centers, in particular, for the people of New Orleans. Estella Olguin of the Texas Child Protective Services is there now. Estella, good to have you with us. Give us a sense, if you can...
ESTELLA OGUIN, TEXAS CHILD PROTECTIVE SVS: Thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: ... of the scope of the problem. How many children do you suspect are separated? Is there any way of telling?
OGUIN: You know, right now we don't know, but we've had so many people come to us looking for their children and we realize that they might not even be in Houston. They might be in other cities, perhaps in other states. We realized early on that there was going to be a problem when people were being bused here and being separated either at the Superdome or somewhere else. That's why we decided to set up these lost children sections up in all of these -- either facilities or shelters.
M. O'BRIEN: How many of these lost children facilities are there right now that you know of?
OGUIN: Well, we have CPS staff, Child Protective Services staff set up in at least 17 of the shelters here at the George R. Brown Convention Center, here at the Astro arena. We also have them in other cities like Dallas, Corpus, Austin, San Antonio and so it's growing as, of course, the shelters are also growing.
M. O'BRIEN: And are you using the Internet, a Web site? Or how are you getting the word out between these centers that you might have -- that the children are there?
OGUIN: We have, we're partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So we are sharing information with them. We are taking photographs of children and downloading them into their database so that people can have one central number that they can call and see if their children have been located. Also we are entering names of parents who are looking for their children, just in case some other shelter, some other state has those children.
M. O'BRIEN: And is that Web site publicly available? Can people go on there, if they're looking for a child?
OGUIN: Right now we encourage them it call the 1-800-the-lost.
M. O'BRIEN: Say that again. 1-800-the-lost.
OGUIN: The lost and that's the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Now of course, they can always call the American Red Cross to see if their family members have signed up in some of these shelters, but we are going to be taking digital photographs of the children and we've had to take custody of some children who have been separated from their parents when they were rescued on Monday and Tuesday. But for the most part, we've been successful in reuniting them after the parents arrived on a separate bus.
M. O'BRIEN: Estella, how of these -- sweeping generalization here, but how are these children doing? And what are you telling them?
OGUIN: You know, children are so resilient, and we've got toys and books and clean clothes and food for them here, and we've got social workers who are, you know, just trying to get their -- you know, preoccupy them so that they're not thinking about what's happened, but certainly they're very distraught. Some of the children who haven't seen their parents in days are very upset. But we're doing the best we can to try to get them back to as normal a life as possible.
M. O'BRIEN: And so far you've had a fair amount of success reuniting children and their parents. Haven't you?
OGUIN: Yes, we have. We've been very lucky. You know, we have this holding center. So we keep the children in case the parents arrive on a separate bus.
M. O'BRIEN: This is separate from the Astrodome right, in a separate place?
OGUIN: Right. Well, we have them in the Reliance center.
M. O'BRIEN: OK, in the Reliance Center, in a separate location. And you've been -- you say about 50 children have been reunited there because of those efforts?
OGUIN: Yes. At least 50 children have been reunited. We have children trickling in all day long. Sometimes it's because the parent just got up to maybe go to the store, go to the bathroom, go to medical services and the children have wandered away. So we're encouraging everyone to come to this one location, the lost children center.
M. O'BRIEN: Estella Oguin, you're doing good work. We appreciate those efforts there.
OGUIN: Thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: You and all your staff, and we wish you well.
OGUIN: Thank you so much.
M. O'BRIEN: To reunite families.
OGUIN: It is important. Especially after everything they've suffered, to be together with their families.
M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Estella Oguin.
We're going to take a break. When we return, we'll return to Soledad who is in New Orleans right near the French quarter, and she'll tell you the story of the rescue effort through the eyes of the rescuers. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.
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S. O'BRIEN: Most of the people who wanted to get out of the city have had a chance to get out of the city, but that was not the case several days ago, of course. Here in New Orleans, because of all of the civil unrest and violence, frankly, the mayor had to call in all the police, who were out doing search and rescue to come back in and take control back of the city. That meant that the civilian volunteers went in to try to do some of those search and rescues. We want to introduce you to Andy Buisson. He's one of those civilian volunteers who's going to go back out this morning in a boat and try to help out. The team actually is quite large. How many people you got?
ANDY BUISSON, VOLUNTEER RESCUER: We got 17 boats and 36 volunteers, all come from a construction company in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
S. O'BRIEN: You were telling me that you had a very productive day on Wednesday.
BUISSON: Oh, yes.
S. O'BRIEN: That's why you're heading back there today.
BUISSON: I think we probably pulled out about 1,000 people from the eastern area of New Orleans. S. O'BRIEN: You go back there today?
BUISSON: We're going back today because we left some and told them we'd come back.
S. O'BRIEN: What kind of situation and circumstances were they in when you left them? BUISSON: Well, my wife and I worked in a 15- story high-rise, kind of an assisted care facility and there are some folks in wheelchairs we just couldn't tend to and we're intent on getting back to get them. Now others fanned out in the neighborhood and they're going to go back and we're going to get into deeper water back toward Lake Pontchartrain today in the same area.
S. O'BRIEN: What was it like Wednesday to see someone who is clearly begging for help and saying, don't just take my friend. Take me, too?
BUISSON: We didn't have to make those decisions. Unfortunately, the last few, there were some who had just had surgery and we were intent on telling them, on getting them proper care. We didn't want to hurt them getting them out, because we were bringing them down into a dark stairwell with about four feet of water and then putting them into the boat. We actually brought the boat up into their dining room, what used to be their dining room and we just didn't think we could safely do it. We're not trained EMTs or ambulance guys. So we wanted to get them proper medical removal and we're hoping we can do that today.
S. O'BRIEN: You're a local person. What was it like to know that you had to step in when the police could not do the job because the violence in the city had gotten so bad?
BUISSON: Well, actually, I grew up here and that was part of the reason for us deciding to come back. The fellas from the Lake Charles, a bunch of Cajun boys with flat bottom boats who like to hunt and fish just rallied and decided to come over. I'll tell you, the violence -- we slept in the bed of our trucks last night and even Wednesday night, when people were getting frustrated at the convention center, we didn't see any violence. We slept in the bed of our truck Tuesday. In fact, three of our guys went out with the SWAT team on Wednesday night because the SWAT guys had lost one of their fellas. They took the boats out, helped them to recover them, but we are out of supplies. We took off about 2:00 in the morning, got home about 6:00. We regrouped and came back yesterday.
S. O'BRIEN: We've gotten some reports from some people, when they're trying to do rescue, the police told me in fact last night that they're still being shot at.
BUISSON: We got the same reports. We haven't seen it. We haven't seen any of it, fortunately. I was told by Captain Bayard (ph) of the New Orleans Police Department yesterday that despite reports, there were no reports yesterday of law enforcement officers involved in any kind of incidents. So it's obviously better. We knew Wednesday night, the frustration, when we pulled our armada through the convention center, there were a lot more people than there had been the night before and they were obviously angry and frustrated, but no one bothered us. No one harassed us. We drove right through the group. But it was obvious that something had to be done and fortunately they did that. I've lost track. I guess yesterday or the day before, when the water and food came in, the air is completely different.
S. O'BRIEN: It literally is completely different. I think even just some military walking around and kind of giving a sense that control is back in the city as we hoped. But, still, you're from here. How strange is it to see --
BUISSON: Oh, it's very surreal. We were in areas of town that used to be the nice uptown areas of New Orleans yesterday. Carrollton Avenue, in six feet are of water and it's disheartening to me. I love this city. I grew up here and haven't lived here in quite some time, but we always come back. But I'm telling you, it's encouraging. I wish you could see the volunteers and the folks from all over the country who have driven in here, slept in their cars. Showered -- in fact, coming back we've been in some of this nasty water all day yesterday. We've picked up some of the extra water that was left and we actually showered with it this morning and last night. So --
S. O'BRIEN: It's making do.
BUISSON: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Nice to see you.
BUISSON: Thank you very much.
S. O'BRIEN: Thanks for your efforts and the efforts of all of you.
BUISSON: I want you guys to be encouraged because this is -- there's a lot of positives coming out of this and there's a lot of great folks working over here.
S. O'BRIEN: There truly is. Thanks a lot. Miles?
M. O'BRIEN: Soledad, he has such a great attitude.
S. O'BRIEN: Yeah. You know what? I think you have to, if you're going to be working around the clock and physically trying to pull people out of desperate situations and voluntarily doing it on your free time. Yeah. You have to be a pretty special person and have a pretty good attitude about it, too.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much. See you in a little bit.
In a moment, today's top stories, including the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and a brewing crisis. Too many evacuees. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.
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