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Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace for September 5, 2005, CNNHN

Aired September 05, 2005 - 20:00   ET

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

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, seven days since Katrina tore through the country`s Southland, and tonight the destruction feared becomes reality. Crisis -- everyone begging for help, thousands predicted dead, thousands unaccounted for. Your help is needed to find them. Bodies all over the city, in deep water, on the city streets, even in their own homes, the gruesome scene of desperation made worse by a breakdown of law and order. Tonight, the police chief tells the world New Orleans as we knew it is destroyed.
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace, and I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, not one but two vacancies at the nation`s highest court after the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist over the weekend, President Bush calling for John Roberts to take the bench not as a novice but as the Chief Justice.

But first to New Orleans. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the relief and rescue effort now under way, but is it too little, too late? New Orleans mayor now warning 10,000 people may be dead. Much like the aftermath of 9/11, tomorrow coroners begin the daunting task of identifying the dead using techniques like forensic dentistry and DNA.

Joining me right now, let`s go straight out to Anderson Cooper. Anderson, what are you seeing there in New Orleans?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Nancy, you know, to be honest, I can`t tell you all the things I`ve been seeing because some of them are just simply too gruesome. You talked about the coroner starting to identify bodies. I mean, the number of bodies they have found is minuscule compared to the number that they believe they are going to find. There is a body floating about literally 100 yards or so away from where I`m standing in the 9th ward. This is an off-ramp of a highway that`s been flooded. There`s bodies over there.

I went in the 9th ward earlier on a boat. There was a man laying out on the top of an automobile who had drowned. And there are going to be so many people probably drowned inside their homes, and those homes are all sealed up and no one has been able to go house to house, and that`s what they have to do. It is grim. It is gruesome. But it is necessary. And it is only then that we`re going to know how many people have actually died in New Orleans.

GRACE: Anderson, we are looking at shots out of New Orleans right now. How can they possibly go house to house?

COOPER: They can`t right now. I mean, literally -- you know, 50 percent of the city is flooded. The last estimate that I heard, in the 9th ward, the whole place is flooded. You go around -- I mean, we went out in a shallow-bottom boat today, saw bodies floating, as we did yesterday, as well, where there are people still refusing to evacuate. There are people who are stranded in their homes who don`t want to leave because they`ve got pets, and you`re not allowed to bring your pet with you. So they know if they leave their pet, their pet`s going to die. Their pet`s going to drink this toxic water.

I mean, this city is covered with black toxic water. It`s got -- I mean, it`s got all sorts of horrific stuff in it, Nancy, that -- you know, you`ve got all these stranded abandoned dogs that are drinking this stuff. They`re likely going to die from it. So there are a lot of issues about why people don`t want to evacuate still.

GRACE: Are the rescuers still finding survivors, Anderson?

COOPER: Yes, they are. Absolutely, every day, every hour. We were literally just out in this boat for about 15 minutes on our own. Suddenly, we saw this huge helicopter hovering in the sky, a Coast Guard helicopter. They plucked two people out of the water right before our eyes, and it`s a remarkable thing to see.

But you know, there`s frustration here among the first responders because there are people who have come from Florida, from every state in the union, small trucks, fire departments have come from around Louisiana. They want to help. They`re standing around. They`ve got gas in their tank. They`ve got boats to help. But no one is telling them. No one is coordinating with them. And that`s been very, very frustrating for a lot of these small-town paramedics and firefighters who desperately want to help, but there`s not enough coordination yet, and that is -- that`s annoying them.

GRACE: Well, Anderson, we are hearing reports that police officers are walking off the job, turning in their badges, and the mayor of New Orleans has stated that two police officers have actually committed suicide. Here`s what the mayor had to say on another note.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: I`m screaming at the governor and the president. You know, the CIA could come in here any minute and wipe me out, so -- but I`m going to keep doing it. And I`m going to stay here until people are out of here and the city is safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That`s the mayor of New Orleans speaking out.

I want to quickly go out to Rick Sanchez. He`s also in New Orleans, in a different spot from Anderson Cooper. He`s there at the airport. Rick, what are you seeing?

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I`ve been seeing everything that Anderson`s describing, and in some cases even more. There are some bits of good news, Nancy. Let`s start with saying that there is more order, at least in the downtown part of New Orleans around the convention center and around the Superdome. That certainly is good news because it lets authorities be able to do their job, and it frees more of them to go out and do some of the rescues that Anderson was describing.

The other bit of good news is they`re finally able to pump out some water around the 17th Street canal. And you know, that was the breach that caused the big problems around Jefferson and Orleans parish. So with those pieces of news in, then other things will follow.

For example, when you asked Anderson how they would be able to go house to house to look for the bodies or perhaps even people who are still alive somehow, when they get the water down low enough, they`ll able to create a grid. And by creating grids, then they can go in those homes and then mark them if there are bodies there or if there are people there, so that they don`t repeat themselves and go in that same area again, very much like other search teams have done in other areas when they`ve been looking for, as you know, perpetrators or criminals.

GRACE: To Anderson Cooper. Anderson, I was just listening to you before I came to the set, and I heard you talk about seeing one body on top of a car. And I`m guessing that the guy was standing on top of the car, trying to live, and finally perished and died. I also saw you trying to rescue a dog, and you said -- I thought I heard you say there were dogs up in the trees?

GRACE: Yes. I`ve seen dogs in trees. I`ve seen dogs floating on debris, swimming, following our boat. I mean, we had a dog following our boat for a little while today, you know, trying to stay up with us. And you know, at one point yesterday, I did a stupid thing. There was a dog, we thought it was dead, floating on debris. You know, all of a sudden, it opened its eyes. You know, I got so excited, I got out of the boat, trying to give it some water. Of course, all this, you know, toxic water basically went right into my waders, which, you know, is stupid on my part.

But you know, you want to do something. You want to try to help. You know, there are so many people in need. There are animals in need. I mean, it is just -- it`s one of those things you just can`t -- you know, every time you think you`ve seen the worst, then you turn the corner and there`s something even more surreal and horrific. And it`s a terrible thing, Nancy.

GRACE: You know, another thing I heard you say is that the rescue crews are going out, and they just pass one body after the next, floating in the water. They just have to keep on going, trying to find the living.

Joining me right now is Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, the former New Orleans mayor. First of all, sir, thank you for being with us. And any word on your mother-in-law?

SIDNEY BARTHELEMY, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: No, not yet, Nancy. Her name is Cornelia Thibodeaux (ph), and she`s about 86 years old and she`s paralyzed. And we know that she left the triage center at the airport, and we don`t know where they took her. And so we`ve been trying frantically to find her.

GRACE: Cornelia Thibodeaux, 86 years old. Mayor, when did you get out of New Orleans?

BARTHELEMY: I left Monday morning. We evacuated with several thousand other people because it took us 14 hours to get to Atlanta, which is normally a six-and-a-half-hour drive.

GRACE: Sir, have you ever evacuated before? Why did you leave this time?

BARTHELEMY: No, this is the first time I left, really, because I paid attention to the weather service, and they`ve always predicted pretty accurately where the hurricane was going to go. This time, they predicted a direct hit to New Orleans, and that was the first time in a long time that they did that. And so I figured that it was time to get out because this was a category 4 hurricane and it was a monster of a hurricane.

GRACE: Was there any kind of a plan in place?

BARTHELEMY: Well, there were plans for evacuation. There were, you know, contra-flow plans to change the direction of the expressways so people could get out. There were other plans of emergency preparedness. But I don`t think anyone expected the kind of disaster to take place that did take place.

GRACE: Well, sir, haven`t representatives and politicians been screaming for a long time now about these levees?

BARTHELEMY: Well, yes. Yes, many people have been saying that the levees are not strong enough to be -- to withstand a category 4 or a category 5 hurricane. And I think that the Corps of Engineers and the levee districts have asked for strengthening of those levees. There were hurricanes before...

GRACE: Sir, what exactly do you have to do to get money out of Washington! I mean, I know they`ve got it! I look at my paycheck every other week, and I know they`re getting plenty. So what do you have to do to get money, much needed? And now we`re seeing the consequences!

BARTHELEMY: Well, I mean, I`m like you, Nancy. I don`t understand why it`s taken so long to put together the plans and the actions that are necessary to save the people. You have to understand that many times, mayors have requested additional help and support for funding from the federal government, and many times it`s fallen on deaf ears. And you know, they do the best they can with the resources that they have.

GRACE: Well, speaking of doing the best they can with the resources they have, take a listen to what the New Orleans police have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were fighting odds that you couldn`t imagine. We had no food. We had no water. We ran out of ammunition. We had no vehicles. We were fighting in waist-deep water that was infected and polluted. I have officers with infections from cuts. See, this is the real story. You`re hearing it from the person who`s out there on the front line.

There were rumors that police officers was standing by, watching people get raped. Are you crazy? We did everything we can humanly possible to protect human life. Not one of my police officers that was on that (INAUDIBLE) front line succumbed to the pressures that they`re talking about!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I want to go straight out to Deborah Feyerick. She is joining us from Baton Rouge. What are you seeing in Baton Rouge?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we`re seeing in Baton Rouge -- there was a big debate today as to whether everybody was playing nicely. The president snubbed the governor by not letting her know that he was going to be coming into town. She said that her office actually called the White House today at about 6:00 in the morning to inquire whether, in fact, he was going to be here. The governor was told yes. She canceled plans to go to a shelter in Houston, met the president at the airport.

And then later on in the afternoon, it seemed that everything had changed. We were hearing phrases like, Shoulder to shoulder, Hand in hand, We are not divided, There is no friction. So it does appear that right now, what`s trying to happen is that everybody is trying to just make this thing work. There was a delay in getting people here simply because the storm was so huge and the resources need to go in were just so large.

But Nancy, there really is a sense of disappointment on the part of the parishes themselves. We spoke to one state senator, and she said part of the problem is, is that they were told on Monday that resources were in place, that they would get help, that the National Guard would come and save them. They realized by Tuesday morning that nobody was coming to get them.

And this is somebody from St. Bernard`s parish. She said that what they did is that all the officials, anybody who had stayed behind to see what was going to happen with this storm, they got themselves in boats and they started going house to house. They started saving their own people.

And I said to her, Well, isn`t that the way it`s supposed to work, you go out and take care of your own? She said, Yes, well, you are supposed to take care of your own, but at the same respect, we thought FEMA was going to come in, we thought the National Guard was going to come in. And why? They had 10 National Guardsmen days after the storm. There are no answers to that.

She also told me one story that you have to hear, and that is certain places were so ill-equipped to evacuate that in one particular nursing home, the staff got out 35 people, the people they thought would make the transport. They left 35 others behind. All of them drowned in their beds in this nursing home...

GRACE: Oh!

FEYERICK: ... because there was no plan in place to get those other people out. The nursing home called for help. They called too late, and therefore, they took who they thought they could save and they left the others to die, a real difficult choice. It`s not a choice they probably had to make, but it`s one they were faced with because they just didn`t get their people out -- Nancy.

GRACE: Deb Feyerick is joining me from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, talking about seniors dying in their beds, water coming up over them.

Here is what the mayor had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAGIN: What the state was doing, I don`t frickin` know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn`t adequate. And then the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don`t get in sync, more people are going to die.

He called me in that office after that. He said, Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor. I said -- and I don`t remember exactly what they were. Two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

It would have been great if we could have left Air Force One, walked outside and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn`t happen, and more people died.

I asked them to delegate the authority to me. I said, Governor and President, if you guys can`t figure it out, delegate it to me. I`ll get it done. Give me the authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are trying in our way to help find the missing. As we go to break, take a look at this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We asked several of them that last night why they stayed, and every one of them`s response was pretty well the same. They said, We didn`t think it was going to be this bad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there are dead bodies. We actually believe there will be thousands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The water came so fast, it was two feet, three feet by the porch. By the time I went in the back to get all of these things, it was up to your waist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us on this Labor Day.

I want to go straight out to two very special guests joining us tonight, Freddie and Maria Powell. They are missing their son and daughter. Welcome, Freddie. Welcome, Maria. Tell me, how did you lose your son and daughter, Maria?

MARIA POWELL, MISSING HER SON AND DAUGHTER AFTER KATRINA: Well, my daughter went with her father to a hotel on Canal Street. Someone also said they spotted my daughter with her father at the convention center. The last time I seen her was Sunday, when she left me to go with her father because I felt her being in a higher place in a hotel would be a lot safer than her being with me in a house.

GRACE: Now, your daughter, 16 years old, is it Kimbrielle (ph)?

MARIA POWELL: Yes.

GRACE: Sixteen years old, last seen with her father on Canal Street?

MARIA POWELL: At the convention center.

GRACE: OK. Now, sir, Freddie, tell me about your son.

FREDDIE POWELL, MISSING HIS SON AND DAUGHTER AFTER KATRINA: Well, my son, Jamal (ph), was with his mother in Kenner. I mean, up in Metairie. They were supposed to go to a hotel in Metairie. I don`t know what hotel. But they say Metairie got hit just as bad as New Orleans. And the last time I talked to my son was Sunday morning because I had to tell him to go with his mother because he wanted to stay back and, you know, worry about his job because he`s in college. But like I told him, his life was more important. And I haven`t heard from him since.

GRACE: What kind of job was...

FREDDIE POWELL: I`ve been calling the house...

GRACE: Where was he working?

FREDDIE POWELL: Well, he`s in college, and he was working for Tulane University.

GRACE: Jamal, 20 years old. Kimbrielle, 16 years old. Let`s go straight back out to the Astrodome. Standing by, Freddie and Maria Powell. They are missing their son and daughter, 16 and 20 years old.

Guys, when did you get to the Astrodome?

MARIA POWELL: Thursday morning.

GRACE: How did you get there?

MARIA POWELL: A Trailway bus.

GRACE: What did you see in New Orleans before you left?

FREDDIE POWELL: It was nothing but destruction. You know, it was a lot of chaos. I had to take two-and-a-half blocks of people and put them up in a school because the water came up so high, we had to flee our homes. We spent a night-and-a-half up in a school. And when the mayor finally decided to clear the whole city to be cleaned out, we got out. The National Guards picked us up on top of the interstate. We took a truck from the interstate to the pick-up route where the buses were, which is in Metairie. And it took us a day to get to where we`re at now, and we`ve been here ever since.

GRACE: You took a truck? How did you get a truck, hitchhike?

MARIA POWELL: No. The trucks were on top of the bridge, and they were taking people to Kenner to board the buses.

GRACE: Did you see the looting and the violence in New Orleans that we`ve been hearing about?

FREDDIE POWELL: Yes, ma`am. We definitely seen it because it was right there in our eyesight.

GRACE: What did you see?

FREDDIE POWELL: I seen people doing things they shouldn`t have did. You know, there was people out there trying to help us, and you know, they was making it worse than what it seemed. There was a lot of times a lot of more people could have been saved, but what was going on was unnecessary.

GRACE: Freddie and Maria, I know you evacuated and you did not bring photos with you. But please hear us, everyone. We are looking for Jamal, just 20 years old, going to school and working there at Tulane, Kimbrielle, just 16 years old, last seen at the convention center with her father. They have not heard from them since Sunday.

Freddie and Maria, what`s a phone number where people can reach you?

FREDDIE POWELL: Well, they can call my sister`s number, 985-652-1384. That number will be open 24/7.

GRACE: It`s 985-652-1384. Everyone, with us, Freddie and Maria Powell. They are missing their girl and their boy. As you can see, they`ve evacuated to the Astrodome. Please help us find them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY JOHNSON, EVACUEE: I was able to get up through the grace of God and make it out of the chaos going on down there. And you know, the guys (INAUDIBLE) down there, they really -- they made it seem like a dream, but it turned my dream into a reality. You know, I just went on faith with it. I`m still alive, is all that counts. I made it. I`m a survivor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: So many people did not and could not survive. We just heard a story of almost half of a nursing home being left to die in their beds.

Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to go out to a colleague, Ernie Allen with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His job is even more daunting now. Welcome, Ernie. Tell me what you`re doing to help the Katrina victims.

ERNIE ALLEN, NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: Well, Nancy, the Justice Department has asked us to create a special national hotline focusing on the missing people associated with Katrina. We have people on the ground who are going into the shelters, who are talking to these people. Our hotline went live at noon today, and already in the first two hours, we had 380 missing children reported and 145 missing adults. We think the story like the Powell story is being played out thousands of times in these three states.

GRACE: And of course, there are not only thousands missing, thousands dead, but children separated from their parents.

ALLEN: Well, there really are. And Nancy, there are some positive signs. Just yesterday, seven young children, the oldest 6, the youngest 5 months, in a shelter in Baton Rouge, were reunited with their parents in San Antonio.

GRACE: I want to give that toll-free number, 888-544-5475. With us, Ernie Allen from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I`m Thomas Roberts. Nice to have you with us. And we get straight to your "Headline Prime Newsbreak."

You may get some relief at the gas pump very soon. Oil prices on international markets dipped today after several nations agreed to release 60 million barrels from stockpiles to help ease the U.S. fuel crunch brought on by Hurricane Katrina. Now, according to AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gas is now more than $3.

The ruptured levee separating New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain has been patched and crews are now pumping water out of the city. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it could take up to 80 days to complete this job, but things could speed up if crews get more pumps working.

And a tragic freak accident today in Austria. Nine people, including six children, were killed when a helicopter accidentally dropped a concrete block onto a cable car at a ski resort. The chopper was transporting the block to a mountaintop construction site when it broke loose.

That is the news for now. Thanks for joining us. I`m Thomas Roberts. We take you back for more of NANCY GRACE.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Thousands missing, thousands homeless, thousands believed dead. The aftermath of Katrina.

Let`s go straight out to Ted Rowlands, standing by in Biloxi, Mississippi. Ted, bring me up-to-date there.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, here in Biloxi, the Marines and Navy came in force today, and they have established what they`re calling Camp Restore.

Five hundred Marines, 4,000 Navy shipmen came in from off the shore here. They`re being deployed tonight all across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It`s a different scenario down here, in that it is dry and there can be work done.

However, the enormity stretches for miles, over 100 miles of Gulf Coastline has been demolished, home after home, building after building. They`re still looking and finding bodies on a daily basis.

Now, with this help from the military, they can start with the infrastructure. They`re going to start trying to get the sewage systems back, and then electricity.

People are being fed and given water. It can only go on so long. People are going to be making some very tough decisions here in the next weeks and months to come. Where are they going to live while their lives are restored?

GRACE: Ted Rowlands on the ground at Biloxi, Mississippi.

Ted, what are the survivors telling you?

ROWLANDS: Well, we`ve heard some amazing survivor stories. A lot of folks are saddened because they`ve lost neighbors or family members.

But we have met people that swam to their safety, swam onto -- one person swam onto a boat, then tied a boat up onto a magnolia tree and rode out the storm there.

Another person was actually on a boat and had engine problems, got caught in the middle of it, and ended up a quarter-mile inland on top of what used to be somebody`s house. He and his two dogs survived.

People rode this storm out in all kinds of different places. A lot of people tried to ride this storm out and didn`t. And their bodies are still being retrieved.

GRACE: Ted, do you have any idea what the death toll is in Mississippi?

ROWLANDS: No. It is expected to be in the thousands. There are some cities, Waveland, Mississippi, one of them, Port St. Louis another one -- Bay St. Louis another one, that were basically wiped out, a good portion of them, from the railroad tracks in.

We`re talking about a mile-and-a-half of home after home. We were there last night. And it is breathtaking to drive down those streets and just see completely flattened homes and huge piles of rubble.

They`re trying to go through them with dogs and cameras, looking for signs of life and looking for the dead. At some point, they`re going to have to do something with all of this. And they will never find some of these bodies.

GRACE: Ted Rowlands joining us from Biloxi.

Quickly, to Captain Marlin Defillo. He`s joining us. He is with the New Orleans Police Department.

Officer, thank you for being with us. Captain, what can you tell me? What`s the situation on the ground in New Orleans?

Captain, are you with me?

CAPTAIN MARLIN DEFILLO, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I`ll tell you what. They have been out here every single day. I mean, morning to night.

GRACE: Captain, can you actually force people to evacuate?

DEFILLO: (OFF-MIKE)

GRACE: OK, Elizabeth, can he hear me?

I`m going to try Captain Marlin Defillo back. We have heard reports from New Orleans that officers are handing in their badges, they are walking off the job. Reportedly two officers have committed suicide.

I want to quickly go back out to Deb Feyerick. She is joining us from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Deb, can you tell me about that, officers leaving the job?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can tell you, Nancy, that about one in five police officers has left their job. These men and women were completely under siege in the days after this hurricane hit.

One police officer, a sergeant, told us that it was like Somalia. He saw gangs running around in trucks with rifles and AK-47s. There was a total state of chaos.

The first district precinct station house totally under fire. They put up a sign that said, you know, "Fort Apache," the Bronx, referring to the movie there. A mall burned down. There was a station inside that.

The police officers were targets. We heard reports that there were snipers firing at some of the officers. And here these guys are, they`re trying to save people, and they are coming under attack.

You know, I asked about arrests. We haven`t gotten any sort of numbers on whether, in fact, they have been able to round up the bad guys. The city is secure, we are told.

However, where are the bad guys? Well, they don`t know. They don`t know whether they were airlifted out or whether they jumped on those buses. They confiscated a lot of guns, a lot of knives, from people who were trying to get a ride out.

But they could also be just hiding out in their homes. We passed one home, and there`s a big sign on it, and it said, you know, "Do Not Enter." There was a big skull and crossbones. And it said "Crips."

So the people in that house were making it very clear, don`t touch our house, we`re a member of a gang. It was a bad, bad situation. And the cops were just totally overwhelmed, and nobody was coming to help in the early days -- Nancy?

GRACE: Let`s try Captain Defillo again with the New Orleans Police Department. We`re having a hard time getting through to New Orleans tonight.

Captain, are you with me? No captain, OK. I`m going to try him again in a moment. Still trying to reach Captain Marlin Defillo with the New Orleans Police Department.

Here`s what the mayor had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAY NAGIN, MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: In this city and most urban cities, there`s lots of drugs that flow through the city. So you have drug addicts out there. And after the fourth or fifth day of not having a fix -- see, the drug addicts, the first thing they did, they broke into drug stores and hospitals to get some type of medication to take the edge off.

Once that was over, we had drug-starving, crazy people out there. And they don`t think rational when they need a fix. And so they degraded into these devils.

EDDIE COMPASS, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: This is the real story. This is the story what went on out there on that front line.

We were sleeping on the streets. I had the same underwear on for five days. There were no restroom facilities. There were no way for to us get medical attention.

I had two of my officers commit suicide, because they were worrying about their families. The human sacrifice that this police department made is unprecedented in the annals of our country.

And I really think America really needs to note that, instead of trying to find a few cowards who walked away, they need to really look at all the heroic acts that was done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Amen to that.

Here in the studio with me, psychotherapist Dr. Robi Ludwig. When you`re coming down off crack, off cocaine, off heroin or methamphetamine, for God`s sake, what happens?

DR. ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: You`re crazy, and dangerous, and paranoid, and violent, and you will do anything just to get your fix. And you have to remember, when there`s a natural disaster, the world does not look the way it normally does. It looks like a war zone.

And it`s like the final frontier. And some people will behave in a very primitive and violent way. And we also don`t know their feelings about police officers in general. This could have been their time to retaliate.

GRACE: I want to go to Vanessa Williams, the executive director of the National Conference of Black Mayors.

Ma`am, thank you for being with us. What are the most urgent needs right now?

VANESSA WILLIAMS, NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF BLACK MAYORS: Some of the most urgent needs right now in these communities is really just to get resources to them. We have mayors that still have power down. We have mayors that have no communication lines up whatsoever.

And we need resources to take care of the community members that are there, water, Pampers, diapers, generators. Some of these communities outside of New Orleans were very, very poor communities that had limited resources from the beginning. And now we`re just galvanizing an effort to get them those resources.

GRACE: Vanessa, Vanessa, before we go to break, I`ve got to ask you this. We can`t get in and carry these on our backs to New Orleans.

WILLIAMS: That`s correct.

GRACE: Tell us, what can we do to help them?

WILLIAMS: Well, our organization, the National Conference of Black Mayors, through our organization, if you would contact us at www.ncbm.org, we are working with Mayor Nagin`s staff. We are working with our Louisiana state chapter president, Jamie Mayo (ph), or Alabama state chapter, and our Mississippi state chapter.

We have designated drop spots on which people can make donations, and we can get them delivered to those communities.

GRACE: I want to quickly go back out to Rick Sanchez, CNN correspondent. Rick is standing by there in New Orleans.

Rick, question: What about all these roving gangs we keep hearing about?

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we`ve been hearing that police officers say that that`s something they`ve been able to at least quell for the moment, although you made a very good point a little while ago, Nancy, when you were talking about the people who have been arrested and what happened to them.

Well, police officers have told us that they have no place for themselves. They have no place for their officers to sleep. So, obviously, one would determine, if they have no place for them to keep their own quarters, they obviously have no place to put prisoners themselves. It obviously is a chaotic situation.

GRACE: Hey, Rick, what is happening there at the New Orleans airport?

SANCHEZ: They`re trying to bring as many people as they can here. And what they`re trying to do is put families back together, Nancy.

We ran into a 6-year-old boy today, 6 years old. And that little boy was crying and in tears. And he said, "I want my mommy, and I want my daddy." And he had no way to find them.

He was with his grandmother. They think their mom and dad are somewhere in Houston, but their cell phones have been lost. They`ve been separated, and there may be no way for them, at least for now, to be able to get back together. Six years old. It tears your heart out.

GRACE: Now, in understand -- Rick, I understand that there`s the makeshift hospital there at the airport. How many people can they treat?

SANCHEZ: Right now, they`ve pretty much gotten most of them out. It`s a triage center. So it`s a makeshift hospital. They bring them in here with helicopters. They ship them out in the back of the airport on C- 5s.

The ones who are critically ill they take to military hospitals. The others they try and categorize, find out perhaps where their families are, take them to Houston, take them to San Antonio, take them to Dallas.

Really, the people who come in here oftentimes don`t know where they`re going to end up. And these folks here are doing the best they can with volunteers from all over the country to try and make that determination.

GRACE: We`re going to break. Rick Sanchez joining us from the New Orleans airport.

As we go to break, take a look at these missing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Just some of the scenes out of New Orleans and across the southland.

Quickly, to Deb Feyerick in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Deb, tell me, is there -- what`s the communication between the command center there in Baton Rouge and New Orleans?

FEYERICK: You know, it`s interesting, Nancy. There is a little bit of a disconnect. We`re talking to a lot of the officials, a lot of the commanders who have been here on site. And then I hear Anderson say that there are firefighters standing around ready to go out and rescue people but not exactly sure where to go.

And that was exactly the question I posed to them. You`ve got thousands of rescue workers who are coming in, who want to help. And they`re just not getting their marching orders quickly enough, according to Anderson, because they`re not being deployed. But they`re there on the ground. They`re ready to do it.

GRACE: Deb, very quickly, a lot of people evacuated out of New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Where are they staying? They just let them off of a bus. What`d they have with them?

FEYERICK: Nancy, Baton Rouge is littered with people. We heard a story today that, in fact, every available house on the market, as of last week, snapped up. There`s not a house available anymore.

People have moved here. They`re littering the streets, the highways, the restaurants, everywhere. It`s a huge exodus of people just right here in this area.

GRACE: Deb Feyerick on the ground in Baton Rouge with the latest.

Everybody, we`ve got to switch gears very quickly.

In Washington, a tempest is brewing. There are now two vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. I want to go very quickly to Jeff Toobin, CNN legal analyst.

Jeff, explain to me what`s happened. Now, how is it that John Roberts, the nominee, can just walk on as the chief justice? Don`t you kind of have to work up to that?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Not really. You know, of the 16 chief justices we`ve had, about half have come straight onto the chief justice position. About half have been promoted from associate justice.

So, you know, William Rehnquist was promoted from associate justice.

GRACE: Right.

TOOBIN: But his two predecessors, Warren Burger, was on -- he was on the same court that Judge Roberts is on, the D.C. Circuit. And Earl Warren was governor of California. So it`s a mix.

GRACE: So this is not unusual?

TOOBIN: It`s not unusual, no.

GRACE: Now, Justice Rehnquist died over the weekend. How does that change the makeup of the court? What does that mean to us regular people?

TOOBIN: Well, you know, the Rehnquist death, while moving and important, will not change the makeup of the court that much because he was very conservative. He`ll be replaced by a conservative, John Roberts.

The real big change in the court potentially is the replacement -- we don`t know who it is -- for Sandra Day O`Connor, because she was a moderate, she was the famous swing vote. She has not yet been replaced. And that`s really where the court could change.

GRACE: To Fred Barbash. He`s with the "Washington Post."

Fred, welcome to the show. What do we really know about Roberts` record?

FRED BARBASH, "WASHINGTON POST" REPORTER: Well, we don`t know very much about Roberts` record. He served as an appeals court judge for two years...

GRACE: Fred, Fred, Fred, this is very unusual for a lawyer not to leave a trail of verbiage behind them.

BARBASH: Well, he left a trail of verbiage, but much of it was either representing clients, Nancy, or when he was a young man in the Reagan Justice Department. And those memoranda from those days suggest, based on those memoranda alone, that he was a conventional Reagan conservative, Nancy.

His time as a judge has been so limited and the nature of the cases that he`s ruled upon so limited that I find it very difficult to state what sort of justice he`ll be, Nancy.

GRACE: Renee Rockwell, defense attorney, how do you anticipate the confirmation hearings to proceed?

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, it`s going to be interesting, mainly because, while the president nominates, the Senate has to confirm. And the Senate`s going to be thinking, especially the minority, the liberals in the Senate, are going to be thinking about that second position.

GRACE: Yes.

ROCKWELL: They could filibuster to make the White House show their hand on who they`re going to possibly put in for that second position.

GRACE: Renee, why are you anti-Roberts?

ROCKWELL: I`m not anti-Roberts, Nancy. I`m just...

GRACE: Well, that`s what you told one of our producers.

ROCKWELL: I am thinking about this. You have a historic event. Since `71, there`s never been an opportunity to put two people on the Supreme Court, namely a lifetime appointment, Nancy, a lifetime. This is a judge that could be there for 30-plus years.

GRACE: We know all that. We all know it`s a lifetime job, pension, dental, the works. They can`t get fired.

But you`re not -- I`m going to give you a moment to think about why you told my producer you`re anti-Roberts, Renee Rockwell.

Let`s go to Joe Lawless. You`re pro-Roberts. Why?

JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: ... and I think his educational background, I think his experiential background...

GRACE: Well, wait a minute. All lawyers got a law degree.

LAWLESS: Well, all lawyers have a law degree, but I think, when you look at guy who`s argued in front of this court, who`s clerked for this court, who understands not only the inner workings of the court but the intellectual bends of the justices that are sitting on there now. You can`t argue before the Supreme Court and not know which judge thinks which way.

GRACE: Well, that`s a mighty big pool, Joe Lawless. A lot of lawyers have argued to the Supremes.

Hey, very quickly to Fred Barbash. Fred, how long will this whole thing take?

BARBASH: Roberts will probably be handled within three to four weeks. And then, depending on when the president nominates an associate justice, that could take us well into the middle or end of September, Nancy.

GRACE: Well, Fred, you make it sound like it`s just a little speed bump on the highway to the U.S. Supreme Court being packed again. Now, you think...

BARBASH: That`s your word, not mine.

(LAUGHTER)

GRACE: So, Fred, do you think anybody`s putting up a fight at all?

BARBASH: Yes, the liberals are putting up a -- some liberal organizations are putting up a fight against Judge Roberts because he appears to disagree with some of the things they believe in. But nobody at this point believes that Judge Roberts won`t be confirmed rather easily.

GRACE: Well, Jeff Toobin, just because you don`t agree with a nominee, that`s certainly not a reason for him to get on the court.

TOOBIN: I`m sorry. Say again, Nancy?

GRACE: Oh, darn. Jeff, don`t move. I`ve got to go to break. We`ll be right back with Jeff Toobin.

TOOBIN: All right, sorry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: John Roberts up for chief justice. Chief Justice Rehnquist passing away over the weekend after a long reign over the U.S. Supreme Court.

Very quickly to Jeff Toobin. Jeff, don`t you need a little more ammunition to try to take down a Supreme Court nominee than "I don`t agree with what they have to say"?

TOOBIN: Absolutely, Nancy. The liberal groups have not succeeded in getting a single U.S. senator at this point to commit to voting against John Roberts. You know, everyone seems to believe he`s a conservative, but no one knows for sure that he will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which is what people care about. Don`t know at this point.

GRACE: So the litmus test of abortion is not going to work in these hearings.

Very quickly to Robi Ludwig, how does this affect the public, when they see partisan bickering over the U.S. Supreme Court? They`re supposed to be non-partisan.

LUDWIG: I know. They lose a lot of faith. And the American people feel that they`re not being taken care of, because their job is to be non- biased and to seek what`s in the best interest of the community. And when that doesn`t happen, we get very disheartened.

GRACE: It`s easy to lose faith.

LUDWIG: Yes.

GRACE: Renee Rockwell, now, get off the dime here and tell me, not that they have paid vacation life appointment. Why are you anti-Roberts, in a nutshell?

ROCKWELL: Nancy, I`m not anti-Roberts. I`m anti-Roberts being the chief justice. I liken it to a football team.

GRACE: OK.

ROCKWELL: He`s a walk-on. He`s clean but he`s green, Nancy.

GRACE: Now, that I can understand, clean but green. Those words are going to come back to haunt you.

And to Joe Lawless, I have 20 seconds left. Can you have -- can you give me anything more than he`s got a law degree, as to why you support Roberts?

LAWLESS: He`s got a law degree. He`s argued before the court. He`s...

GRACE: We`ve all got a law degree.

LAWLESS: Well, Nancy, I`m trying to get you nominated, but I can`t get you past the Judiciary Committee. They don`t want Toobin. They won`t take you. God knows they won`t take me.

GRACE: Well, I just haven`t thrown my hat in yet.

LAWLESS: No, I think here`s a guy who`s clerked in the court, he`s worked in the court, he`s argued before the court. As someone...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Joe, I`ve got to go, but I`m going to get a better understanding of your mind frame when we come back.

I want to thank all of my guests. But my biggest thank you is to you for being with us, inviting us into your home.

Coming up, headlines from all around the world, Larry on CNN. I`m Nancy Grace, signing off for tonight.

Our hearts with the southland.

See you here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Good night, friend.

END