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CNN Live At Daybreak

Worst Confirmed in St. Bernard Parish Nursing Home; Sharp Words All Across Capitol Hill Over Federal Response to Hurricane

Aired September 08, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Thursday, September 8.
The worst is confirmed in a St. Bernard Parish nursing home. The remains of 30 people apparently left behind in the wake of hurricane Katrina are discovered.

Sharp words all across Capitol Hill over the federal response to the hurricane.

And starting over -- young survivors face a new school in a new town.

And from the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.

This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

We'll have more on the grim discovery in Chalmette, Louisiana in just a minute.

Also ahead, storm victims and volunteers reconnect online to begin their recovery.

And as New Orleans dries out, will Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico suffer devastating damage from that toxic stew? We are going to talk to an expert.

But first, now in the news, President Bush is asking Congress for nearly $52 billion more to pay for hurricane recovery. That's on top of the $10.5 billion Congress has already approved for the disaster. The White House says substantially more money will likely be needed.

Vice President Dick Cheney heads to the Gulf Coast this morning. He'll visit the region devastated by hurricane Katrina to assess the relief effort and report back to the president.

And a blow to gays in California. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will veto a bill that would allow same-sex marriages in his state. The legislation was approved by California lawmakers on Wednesday.

To the Forecast Center and Chad -- good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. All eyes on Ophelia, off the coast of Florida. Some of the forecast models did turn it into Florida. Most of them now turn it away. Now, it's already close enough to make a battering wave situation all the way from Cape Canaveral right on back up to St. Augustine, and, for that matter, there are battering waves because of a different high pressure that's to the north, way up into North Carolina. And that onshore flow has made some huge waves over the past couple of days, all the way from, really, Jacksonville, right on up to Cape Hatteras.

Here's the storm itself, the center of circulation. It is now a 60 mile per hour storm with those waves getting right to Daytona, right to Amelia Island all the way up there even into St. Augustine.

If you are around the areas today, the storm is forecast to move away. This storm forecast to move away, as well. That is Nate. That is Ophelia. And that's the remnants of Maria, the storm around Nate, south of Bermuda. And it will continue to move south of Bermuda, moving away so the hurricane warnings for Bermuda have actually been canceled. So folks out there kind of breathing a sigh of relief.

Winds are going to gust to around 60 miles per hour in Bermuda, but that's it. We could have winds that strong around Florida today. Every time one of those arms or those feeder bands, as we call them, as they come onshore, those arms could cause some gusty winds, maybe even a waterspout or two, although we didn't have any reports of that yesterday -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Good.

All right, thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Our top story this morning is a devastating discovery near New Orleans. More than 30 bodies have been found at a single nursing home in Chalmette, Louisiana. Chalmette is in the heavily damaged St. Bernard Parish. A state representative from the parish says residents of St. Rita's Nursing Home were left behind when the staff evacuated and a rescue that was supposed to take place never materialized. The "New York Times" is reporting that some residents tried to barricade the doors and the windows from the inside in an effort to keep the rising floodwaters from getting in. They were using their wheelchairs to do that.

It's just such a sad story. They tried to pound nails in the door. As many as 40 people from the home did manage to escape, but then again those 30 people could not.

Here's more of what you need to know this morning from disaster zone. The mandatory evacuation of New Orleans isn't ready to begin just yet. Police superintendent Eddie Compass says the officers will complete voluntary evacuations first. Compass says it could be a few more days before mandatory relocations get underway.

Food and fresh water are flowing into aid centers and into the hands of those who need it. The Pentagon says the U.S. military delivered seven million bottles of water and two million meals in just one day.

And we're learning more about that toxic sludge in the streets of New Orleans. The Environmental Protection Agency says high levels of E. coli bacteria and lead have been found. Needless to say, the EPA is warning residents against drinking the floodwater.

Some financial help is on the way for hurricane survivors. The federal government will give survivors debit cards worth $2, 000. FEMA Director Michael Brown says the first of its kind program is a way to help the survivors rebuild their lives.

More pumps are working to drain floodwaters out of New Orleans. Twenty-three of the city's 150 pumps are now operating, but it still may take several months to complete the job.

For more on what's going on this morning, we turn to CNN Radio's Ed McCarthy.

He's at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans -- good morning, Ed.

ED MCCARTHY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: What's the airport looking like right now?

MCCARTHY: Well, we have everyone still working here. The homeland security setup here has been working quite well and there are various medical units that are in place. In fact, it's very interesting to walk through this area. What you think might be a restaurant where you could go up and get a cup of coffee or something to eat has turned into a pharmacy. So they've got all the different areas of the terminal area ready to go here when people get in there, choppered in from New Orleans. We'll have more on that today.

The helicopters arriving five minutes at a time sometimes at their peak. People get off the helicopters. They are taken on baggage carts in and getting medical attention.

Those that do pass muster, Carol, will be allowed to go. They're on buses and heading out. But I do see many ambulances that are leaving each day here. So it's very obvious. And I saw a couple of people on stretchers heading in that they really have suffered greatly as the days have worn on here. So they're in the worst shape.

So if you're -- they decide that you need to get more medical attention, there are various hospital facilities that they'll be taken to for that. But they won't be able to travel.

COSTELLO: Right. You know, Ed, in sharp contrast to that -- and we've heard about these mandatory evacuations that are going to take place and some people may be forced from their homes -- there's an interesting article in the "Wall Street Journal." And it's talking about how some of the very wealthy people of New Orleans have managed to stay. There's a part of New Orleans called Audubon Park. And they're talking about -- I'm just going to read a bit of the article: "The green expanse of Audubon Park and the city's uptown area has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable."

In fact, they talk of one wealthy man who hired Israeli security guards. He helicoptered them in to guard the homes in that area from looters.

You know, you just wonder, these people are still in their homes and there's no water around them.

Will they also face that mandatory evacuations like the others who are trapped in their homes and don't want to go?

MCCARTHY: Carol, that's very interesting. And during my travels in New Orleans, I did see those homes. That's in the beautiful Garden District of New Orleans. And those homes were built probably turn of the century and were very well constructed, I might add. So they suffered the least of the damage. That's around the Loyola area, Loyola University area, as well.

That is a question we'll have to deal with. I think Mayor Nagin wants everybody out. I think probably the big lecture is what comes first -- everybody out or we'll use force. And hoping that people will come to their senses and then get out, and then it won't be a push to shove kind of situation.

COSTELLO: Yes, I'm just reading more of this article and it's just -- I guess it just highlights the huge gulf between the rich and the poor in New Orleans, because this one man, his name is Ashton O'Dwyer, he lives in the Audubon Park area. It says: "A pair of oil company engineers dispatched by his son-in-law delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline." And he's having those things helicoptered in.

Now, maybe he's also bringing in things to help the others in New Orleans, but we don't really know that. But everybody else in New Orleans seems to be getting MREs and bottled water.

MCCARTHY: That's true. We hope, certainly, those that have will give, that's for sure, in this situation.

COSTELLO: Ed McCarthy, many thanks to you.

I know you're on your way home, right?

MCCARTHY: Yes, I am. Tomorrow I'll be heading back to Atlanta.

COSTELLO: All right. Well, hopefully we'll talk to you when you get back so you can talk more about what you experienced in New Orleans.

MCCARTHY: I would love to do that.

COSTELLO: Ed McCarthy.

MCCARTHY: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Ed.

Ed McCarthy from CNN Radio.

Congress is considering another emergency aid package for hurricane relief. The supplemental appropriation would be on top of the $10.5 billion already on its way. The price tag for the next phase of the federal relief effort is nearly $52 billion. The House may approve it today, but Senate Democrats may hold out for even more relief funds.

There are more accusations about how this crisis was initially handled. This time they come from the Democratic Party chair, Howard Dean.

Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN: Survivors are being evacuated and as the order is restored and the water recedes and we sort through the rubble, we have to come to terms with the ugly truth that skin color, age and economics played a significant role in who survived and who did not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Criticism is not limited to Democrats. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, announced a joint House-Senate panel that will investigate the initial response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: This joint communication will be tasked with reviewing, at all levels of government, the immediate preparation and recovery from hurricane Katrina. The communication is to report its findings to the Congress no later than February 15, 2006. Americans deserve answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Frist, who went to New Orleans, said he found failures in communication between one rescue unit and another.

Thousands of students displaced by the hurricane are having to start the school year all over again and many of them are far from home.

CNN's Jason Carroll caught up with a few of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE) LAUREN SHERMAN, STUDENT: Bye.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Memphis Catholic schools, the third week of class, but the first day for Lauren Sherman. She's just arrived here. Hard as life can be for any high school junior, imagine if you left your entire life, all your belongings and so many of your hopes behind in New Orleans.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And your name is?

SHERMAN: Lauren.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lauren.

CARROLL: This is St. Benedict's, 400 miles away from Lauren's high school.

SHERMAN: I'm, like, fine with it, you know? Just not being with everyone, but I mean, it's the same. Junior year is like your prom year, you know?

CARROLL: Like Lauren, Greg Johnson is also 16. When Katrina hit, Greg and his mom just got in the car and drove away from their home in New Orleans' still-submerged 9th Ward. They now live in a shelter here in Memphis. This is Greg's fifth day Bishop Byrne High School.

GREG JOHNSON, STUDENT: It has been real hard. But I'm trying to be strong and get over it and just start my life all over again.

CARROLL: In fact, the U.S. Department of Education estimates 300,000 displaced students will need help starting over again; most, if not all, emotionally scarred in some way.

JOHNSON: I really don't have nothing left back in New Orleans at my house. And I just can't seem to get over that every time I think about it.

CARROLL: As for the new schools, how will they manage the new demands? On average it costs a district $8,000 a year to educate a single student. So how will schools offset these added costs? The message is clear and simple -- SOS, send help now.

DONALD EDWARDS, PRINCIPAL: We need donations of uniforms. We need donations of textbooks, instructional materials, writing utensils, paper, pens, all of that.

CARROLL: President Bush met with the secretary of education to discuss how the government will help, but neither offered a plan for how to pay for all of this.

MARGARET SPELLINGS, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: Let's get these kids stabilized. Obviously, it's good for them educationally, emotionally. And then we'll worry about the fine print and how to pay for it later.

CARROLL: Students like Greg and Lauren are just trying to fit in.

(on camera): How do you do that?

JOHNSON: By being open, being myself.

SHERMAN: I'm using this time to like excel in everything. Like, you know, try hard to prep -- like, extra-hard and study extra-hard. Just give me a time to, you know, do better.

CARROLL: There will be more tears. For now, the next class is about to begin.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Memphis, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still to come this hour, the finger pointing looks more like elbow throwing on Capitol Hill as the post-Katrina blame game intensifies.

Also, environmentalists face a grim reality. Marine life in Lake Pontchartrain will have to be sacrificed to save New Orleans. But will the damage be permanent?

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Hurricane Katrina turned a major segment of the airline industry topsy-turvy. You may be asking, as we are, what airports are affected. What about possibly -- what about rental cars? Can you rent rental cars? Because I know a lot of people are using them. And how will oil prices affect ticket prices in the long run?

Ben Mutzabaugh, "USA Today's" travel reporter, joins us live from Washington to answer all of those questions.

Good morning, Ben.

BEN MUTZABAUGH, "USA TODAY": Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Let's start with airports.

How are they affected?

MUTZABAUGH: Well, New Orleans and Gulfport-Biloxi in Mississippi, both of those airports are closed indefinitely. And you really -- any passengers hoping to go down to New Orleans or Gulfport any time in the next month or so really shouldn't count on that. Those airports are closed indefinitely. I don't think we're going to see them reopen, possibly until November, maybe even close to Thanksgiving, at least for commercial flights.

COSTELLO: What if you had a ticket? Because I know most conventions in New Orleans have been like canceled into the next year. MUTZABAUGH: Right. That's going to create a big scramble, obviously. That's one of the top convention cities in the U.S. so there are going to be a lot of people who are going to have to encounter that situation of how to use their New Orleans ticket. Most airlines -- all airlines even that fly to New Orleans and to Gulfport, Mississippi, they're allowing some kind of re-accommodation policy. Either they'll give you a complete refund -- federal law requires any canceled flight, it requires the airlines give you a refund for that flight. So obviously, until New Orleans reopens to commercial flights, they're all canceled.

But even if you're holding a ticket, say, for November, most airlines will allow you to use at least the value of your previously bought ticket to buy a ticket to another destination without any fees or penalties. So there are some options. They vary by airline, but they're being pretty accommodating in this area.

COSTELLO: OK.

Let's talk about rental cars, because we've seen the thousands and thousands of cars within the City of New Orleans just destroyed and waterlogged. So you would assume that a lot of people are renting cars.

How will that affect the rest of us?

MUTZABAUGH: Right. And that's true. There obviously is going to be a huge demand for rental cars in New Orleans, especially as some people are eventually able to get back into the city. Presumably their cars are going to be inoperable, so they're going to need rental cars for themselves.

But if you're flying to the Gulf Coast and you're able to get a flight into Baton Rouge or Lafayette or Mobile or a nearby city, a lot of those cities do still have rental cars available, but the availability is pretty spotty. So if that's something you're hoping to do, it can be done. But you've really got to check ahead and make sure, make certain that there is going to be a rental car available at the city you hope to rent from.

Even if you go onto an online travel site like Orbitz or Travelocity and it says there's a rental car available in an airport like Baton Rouge, there probably is, but even after you make that reservation, you probably want to get the local number of that rental car station at that airport and say hey, I just made a reservation for this kind of car. Are you sure there's one available for the date that I arrive? It should be available, but it's spotty.

COSTELLO: All right. OK.

So, let's move on to the price of airline tickets and the price of rental cars.

MUTZABAUGH: Right. This is, of course, you're going to have the whole gas issue. You know, if you're driving anywhere, whether it's the Gulf Coast or even in Washington State or Maine, gas has gone through the roof and you're going to pay for it.

As far as -- so that's one thing to consider for a rental car. Some of them may be requiring you to prepay to return your car with a full tank of gas and you know that's not going to be cheap.

As far as airline tickets, airline prices, airline fares are going up, and that is a direct result of increasing oil prices. United started the latest increase with a $10 to $30 increase in round-trip fares, depending on the distance of the flight. Most other airlines are going along with the fare increase. And, you know, we've all seen how much money they've been losing over the past three years, so it's kind of inevitable, I guess.

COSTELLO: Yes.

So, good luck.

MUTZABAUGH: Yes, exactly.

COSTELLO: Ben Mutzabaugh, thanks for, I guess, the words of wisdom this morning.

We appreciate it.

MUTZABAUGH: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Point, click and save a family -- when we come back, we'll take you online to Craig's List, a Web-based community that's taking relief efforts into the 21st century. You won't want to miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Time now for a little "Business Buzz."

Hurricane Katrina has apparently hit hard in the employment sector. A congressional report says up to 400,000 jobs may have been lost due to the storm and it could result in slower economic growth for the entire country.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney will soon take on a new tone. He's pitching financial planning for Boston-based Fidelity Investments. The mutual fund giant manages more than $1 trillion in funds. Wow!.

Apple is diving into new territory -- cell phones. Now you have can your phone and your IPod all in one.

Carrie Lee has more details for us.

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, fewer devices, I think that's a good thing. The less things you have to carry around. So you put your IPod and your phone together, your cell phone, and you get an iPhone. Well, the phone is actually called the Rocker. It's made by Motorola and you can connect it to your computer to download music from your IPod library or iTunes. It holds 100 songs. For now, only Cingular customers will be able to buy the phone. The price tag? About $250.

Also, Apple is debuting a new tiny music player called the IPod Nano. Now, this is much thinner than the mini. It looks like a credit card, a thick credit card. It has a color screen. It also stores 1,000 songs and runs for 14 hours. The Nano will cost between $200 and $250.

The new products all part of Apple's plan to extend its domination in the digital music market. Apple has sold over 21 million iPods, Carol, since they were rolled out in 2001.

There is a lot of competition here, but Apple is the dominant player in this space.

COSTELLO: OK, before I ask you about the futures, I always like to check out the price of gas, because we get an update every morning from Jason Evans, our wonderful executive producer from "Headline News."

LEE: Yes.

COSTELLO: The average price of a gallon of unleaded has dropped a little bit more. According to AAA, it's now $3.03 a gallon, $0.01 less than yesterday's $3.04 a gallon.

LEE: Although AAA has admitted they've had a tough time keeping up with gas prices over the last couple of days. But...

COSTELLO: Because they fluctuate so fast.

LEE: They fluctuate, exactly. And we know in some areas, gas has been over $5. So that's just an average, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

COSTELLO: Yes, OK.

The futures now?

LEE: Futures looking a little bit weak this morning. Actually, solidly lower as oil prices creep up. What's interesting, though, is oil has come down pretty significantly over the last couple of days. The Energy Department now says demand isn't going to be what they originally thought because of relatively high prices. So oil in focus with stocks today.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Carrie.

LEE: OK.

COSTELLO: We appreciate it.

The war of words over the federal response to hurricane Katrina heats up on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Americans should now harbor no illusions about the government's ability to respond effectively to disasters.

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: I remind you that the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: An update on the blame game, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.

This is DAYBREAK.

And good morning to you.

Thank you for waking up with us.

Chad will have your forecast in just a moment.

Also coming up this half hour, did FEMA fail in the wake of hurricane Katrina? We'll hear some more of the arguments from both sides in this very heated debate.

And how is the Internet helping out with hurricane relief?

But first, now in the news, authorities in suburban New Orleans have made a grizzly discovery. At least 30 bodies were found in a flooded nursing home in Lower St. Bernard Parish. It is not known yet if the dead were patients, staff or both.

Congress is expected to approve President Bush's request for an additional $51.8 billion in federal aid for the hurricane battered Gulf Coast. Lawmakers approved a similar $10.5 billion aid package last week.

Vice President Dick Cheney is the president's new point man for hurricane recovery. Cheney is set to visit the Mississippi Gulf Coast region later today, where he'll assess the relief effort and report back to the president.

Let's head to the forecast center now -- good morning, Chad.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

Looking at Ophelia this morning, tropical storm Ophelia. They had a plane in, a hurricane hunter aircraft in a little bit earlier. They did find a wind gust above 60 miles per hour, but they kept it at 60 because they thought it was just a small little spin in a minor part of the storm itself.

Here goes Nate south of Bermuda, there, right over Florida, losing a little bit of its color. Notice it's not as cold. Those colors not as red as they were in the overnight hours. Maybe a little bit of shear tearing up Ophelia just a little bit.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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