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American Morning

Hurricane Katrina Relief and Recovery Efforts

Aired September 12, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
I'm Miles O'Brien live from the city of New Orleans.

The president of the United States is here. He will get his first on the ground tour of the heart of this city today and then onward to Gulfport, as he does what he can to get this stricken region back on its feet.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the governor there taking no chances, sending 200 National Guard troops to the coast. The threat of Ophelia on his mind.

In Washington, John Roberts beginning his confirmation hearings and the fate of the Supreme Court, the future of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Ooh, look at that shot.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow!

I just heard Miles say whoo, and that's true. I echo that. Wow! That is sunrise in New Orleans this morning. What a good opportunity to show you a look at that.

We're going to get right back to Miles in just a few moments. He's, of course, with the president -- or where the president is today. We'll bring you that report in just a moment.

First, though, we want to bring you up to date on the mission critical news in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

Signs of recovery as the waters start receding across New Orleans. Trash collection beginning. The city says the city's main wastewater treatment facility is going to be up and running today. Louis Armstrong International Airport open again. It'll be available for some limited passenger service starting on Tuesday.

In Mississippi, electricity is almost completely restored. About 70,000 mostly rural homes and businesses, though, are still without power. That's down, though, from 800,000 who were affected after the storm. And the port of Biloxi showing the first signs of life. The Coast Guard opened the port to some limited commercial traffic.

We're going to send it right back to Miles in New Orleans.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad. It's a busy scene here. In addition to the spectacular sunrise, what you caught me giving a little wow to. It is a busy scene here on the banks of the Mississippi here in the City of New Orleans this morning as the security detail around the president makes preparations for his day.

Look over my left shoulder here. That's the USS Iowa Jima. That's an amphibious assault ship and that's where the president is this morning.

He will be receiving a briefing from some of the state and local officials in about 45 minutes time. And then after that briefing, he'll make his way with a military convoy throughout the streets of New Orleans, in many cases, devastated streets, of course, where untold numbers have died, although we're told yesterday by the military men in charge here, as you look at the president arriving on board the Iowa Jima yesterday as he made his way from Washington.

He did get a brief look at the situation here on his way in. But a more extensive tour today.

After he's finished here in New Orleans, he will make his way to Gulfport, Mississippi, where -- a lot of damage there, where we just told you a little while ago, a glimmer of hope. A school is opening this morning.

The question is what will the president see here, though? There was talk in the heat of the battle, if you will, of possibly 10,000 dead here in the City of New Orleans alone. As the general in charge here, Russel Honore, put it the other day, it's going to be a heck of a lot lower than that. So that is some good news in all of this.

Nevertheless, this is a city that has been devastated. CNN's Sean Callebs is on Jackson Square, just about 100 yards or so from where I'm standing now, where, you know, it's a picture postcard scene. And that sort of belies what is happening in the neighborhoods -- Sean, give us an update on where this city is this morning.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, really. It's kind of a contrast. Two different versions of the city. If you look behind me, Jackson Square, inside the wrought iron fence, it just looks simply pristine -- the green grass and the stately cathedral behind me.

But if you look just a bit to my left, you can see just some of the lingering devastation. This tree, of course, feeling the effects of the wind, the debris down there. Sunday, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, members there, as well as the Coast Guard, were cleaning up Jackson Square. They had saws out, doing what they could to remove the debris. And certainly the president will see a city that is much cleaner than it was right after the storm.

And later on, President Bush will also go by the convention center, really, a flash point for everything that went wrong in the agonizing hours and days right after hurricane Katrina blew through.

Bulldozers are going through, moving much of that debris. Of course, this is where thousands of people were stranded, really very dire conditions, for several days -- no water, no food, lots of floodwaters.

Floodwaters have also receded in this city somewhat significantly, down from a high at about 80 percent of the city flooded to about 50 percent now. That's because so many pumps have been working around the clock and things have been going rather smoothly.

Miles talked about this death toll, really a very punishing part of this whole affair. Right now, authorities say they have removed about 197 bodies, certainly less than the 10,000 some had feared. But the search and rescue endeavors, Miles, are indeed going on. They're trying to get boats out to those areas that are flooded. They're still doing checks in many homes, but right now the death toll figure stands at 197 -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: CNN's Sean Callebs in Jackson Square.

Thank you very much.

Back to you -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks.

Well, every day more Katrina evacuees leave the Astrodome and other big shelters in Houston, Texas for more permanent housing.

Betty Nguyen is live for us at the Astrodome in Houston -- Betty, good morning to you.

Where are they finding the housing? Because, of course, it's got be incredibly competitive at this point and overcrowded?

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are a lot of different avenues in which housing is being provided, Soledad.

One apartment, the Houston Katrina Housing Task Force has already provided 3,100 evacuees with apartments. Aside from those apartments, people are finding homes with family and friends. Also, in faith- based shelters, where they're providing long-term housing there. And also hotels. Even the hotel where we're staying, there are evacuees there, because they're given vouchers to stay in hotels until they find permanent housing.

They're also being told that FEMA, yesterday we learned that FEMA is giving out reimbursements to these local hotels for providing housing to the evacuees.

Now, all of this compassion that's being shown here in Houston is not going unnoticed. The governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, came here yesterday to tour the shelters, meet with evacuees and also to thank Texans for their hospitality, so very grateful to what's being done here in Texas.

And I have to tell you, she came with a lot of representatives from New Orleans and many of them broke down in tears as they thanked the Texans here for what they're doing for the evacuees, providing food, shelter and all the different types of assistance out here.

But those tears soon turned into cheers for evacuees inside of the three main shelters, because their New Orleans Saints were playing the Carolina Panthers. They won that game 23-20 in a last second field goal and many of the evacuees out here, who were interested in the game -- and I can bet you about 99 percent of them were -- watched the game on television. Many televisions were in all of the shelters out here so evacuees could get a little sense of joy on their Sunday.

And on top of that, for the sports fans out here, NBA players -- not just players, but All Stars -- came out here to show their support -- Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant. They all gave hugs to evacuees, signed autographs, really lending a hand, showing their support and letting evacuees know that people around the world do care about them -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, it's so nice to see them, you know, hanging out with those little kids.

I want to ask you a question, though, about Governor Blanco.

You could see she was sort of shaking hands and smiling with folks.

How was she overall received, though? Are people treating her well or do they feel she's heavily to blame for the disaster's aftermath?

NGUYEN: You know, it's really interesting, I was very interested in seeing the kind of response that she was going to get from evacuees. And, in fact, she got a very good response from them. Many came up hugging her, thanking her. She even walked in an impromptu Mardi Gras line out here. So there was some great response.

But I also spoke with some evacuees offsite who said that you know what? If there was a well-organized plan to get the people of New Orleans out, why was I stuck on my roof for two days?

So it depends on who you talk to. Many who spoke with the governor yesterday were very happy to see her. But many also do realize that help came a little late and some of them are very, very upset about that -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Betty Nguyen at the Astrodome for us this morning.

Betty, thanks.

The rest of the headlines now with Carol Costello -- good morning again, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you. Now in the news, Israel says Palestinian officials are not doing enough to control celebrations in Gaza. Palestinian militants rushed into the region overnight, firing off their weapons. Just moments earlier, the last Israeli troops had pulled out of the region. Palestinian crowds tore apart some synagogues and set them on fire. Israel says its pullout of Gaza now complete.

In the wake of Katrina, a new message from al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The suspected terrorist calls hurricane Katrina "an answer to the prayers of Iraqis and the Afghans who have suffered under U.S. occupation." The voice on the receding was verified to be al-Zarqawi by a CNN Arabic speaker familiar with his previous statements.

Confirmation hearings for chief justice nominee John Roberts set to begin in just about four hours. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and John Roberts are expected to give their opening statements today. Actual questioning won't begin until tomorrow.

Stay with CNN for live coverage of today's hearings.

They are set to begin, as I said, at 12:00 Eastern.

Two hundred National Guardsmen on standby this morning with North Carolina's governor declaring a state of emergency ahead of Hurricane Ophelia. Ophelia is hovering off of the East Coast, prompting the governor to order mandatory evacuations for visitors on the outer islands. The storm is expected to turn toward land today but Ophelia is all over the map.

Let's check in with Chad now -- she's just teasing the East Coast.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Certainly.

And now, Carol, it almost looks -- if you use your imagination -- that there may have been a little westward drift in the past couple of frames. It's hard to tell from a satellite picture whether it actually started to pick up any speed or not.

But if you just look, it seems like the outer eastern edge and the western edge just the last couple of frame sets, maybe even wobbled a little bit to the west. And this wobble has been so typical.

Look what it did overnight. It came up, over, down, wobbled again and now it is headed back off to the west, with a forecast turned to the right, up toward Cape Lookout, but anywhere from Edisto Beach right on up to Cape Lookout. That's where hurricane watches are in effect and tropical storm warnings are in effect, because tropical storm force winds may approach the coast within 24 hours, or, in some places, even less.

Some of the computer models on the spaghetti map take it into South Carolina, many into North Carolina and even a few, a couple lucky few, will take it completely out into the Atlantic Ocean. A beautiful day in New York City today. It starts out at 69. New York City today all the way to 81 by noon and 91 by the afternoon. We'll call that hot -- Soledad, a lot of kids back to school. I went to school in New York. A lot of schools don't have air conditioning -- back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: That is very true, they don't.

MYERS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: That spaghetti map? That's ridiculous. I mean, you know, that's just like a guess, essentially.

MYERS: That's exactly it. And so that's why we hope that it is 72 hours away from anywhere, so that that spaghetti kind of gets itself lined up and starts to go in one direction. We'll have a better idea of where that direction is.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, we're going to watch it.

MYERS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: And, of course, you can stay with CNN for complete coverage of Hurricane Ophelia, wherever it goes. CNN, of course, is your hurricane headquarters.

Still to come, more on Katrina's aftermath. Exactly just how long did Louisiana's governor take to ask for federal troops? We'll look at an in depth communications breakdown.

Then later, a momentous day in Gulfport, Mississippi. For the first time since Katrina hit, school is back in session. We've got a live report ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This is a picture from yesterday. Reports said that 40 percent of the city was still covered in water. You can see where it is still covered. It's still pretty bad. Touring the devastated region by boat yesterday afternoon.

A question that's often asked in the days after Katrina struck is this -- just how long did it take the Louisiana governor, Kathleen Blanco, to appeal for federal help?

Carol Lin has a look this morning at how a communications breakdown may have contributed to delays in the deployment of troops.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, a category five storm, Governor Kathleen Blanco sent a letter to President Bush asking him to declare a state of emergency in Louisiana. That was Saturday, August 27th. Her letter did not include a request for military assistance. Governor Blanco's communications director, Bob Mann, said later, "We always assumed that the troops were prepositioned and ready to roll. But they were not."

The governor's office says that hours after the hurricane made landfall on Monday, August 29th, Blanco spoke with President Bush and assumed her request would get the state federal troops.

DENISE BOTTCHER, GOVERNOR BLANCO'S PRESS SECRETARY: And she said we need your help. We need everything you've got. The governor genuinely felt at that time she had asked for help.

LIN: But she did not appeal for federal troops specifically. And her press secretary says she didn't feel she needed to.

BOTTCHER: You don't tell a dying man you're not going to give him CPR unless he asks.

LIN: On the evening of Tuesday, August 30th, the governor's office says Blanco ordered the commander of the Louisiana National Guard to request additional military assistance from General Russel Honore. By Wednesday morning, the situation at the Superdome and convention center was rapidly deteriorating. Governor Blanco was in Baton Rouge in between network TV interviews. In a conversation transmitted over the satellite, the governor and her press secretary discussed what she said in a prior interview about the looting.

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO (D), LOUISIANA: I said we're not tolerating it. We're asking for more military presence. But I mean, you know -- and I'm saying we're putting good people (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I really need to call for the military. We should have started that in the first call.

LIN: Sunday, we asked for an interview with the governor to find out why she expressed that regret if she felt she had already asked for troops.

CNN's Gary Tuchman was provided an interview with her press aide, who said the governor realized she should have been more precise in her call to the president.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now on Wednesday in that TV interview between the interviews, she said - I guess she was talking to you, right?

BOTTCHER: She was talking to me.

TUCHMAN: OK, she said, "I really need to call for the military. I should have...." What was your remembrance of that quote?

BOTTCHER: I need to call for the military, I should have made that clear in my first call to the president.

LIN: The governor's office says that right after the interview Wednesday, Blanco called the White House to appeal for federal troops. President Bush was not available. Instead, she spoke to Homeland Security Adviser Francis Townsend. A senior administration official says that's when troops started moving.

Two days later, as arguments swirled about who was responsible for the breakdown of law and order in New Orleans, Miles O'Brien spoke to the governor on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that request for federal troops, 40,000 federal troops. When did you make that request? Was it on your first phone call to President Bush?

BLANCO: OK, my first phone call, or my first conversation with President Bush, was asking for all federal firepower. I mean, I meant everything, just send it. Give me planes, give me boats...

O'BRIEN: But did you specifically ask -- governor, did you specifically ask for troops? Did you ask that the Pentagon deploy troops? Because that is a very specific request that a governor needs to make of the federal government.

BLANCO: We had troops being deployed. We had the first wave of troops being deployed at the level of 12,000. But before we even got to 12,000, I asked for 40,000.

So you know, I saw that we needed a greater capacity.

O'BRIEN: When did you make that request, though?

BLANCO: Miles, I'm lost in the days.

O'BRIEN: When did you make that request?

OK.

BLANCO: I don't even know what today is.

O'BRIEN: On Wednesday morning...

BLANCO: I made that request perhaps Wednesday.

O'BRIEN: When you spoke...

LIN: The White House confirms that it was only on Wednesday that the governor made a specific request for federal troops. And a senior administration official tells CNN National Guard troops were the best option anyway because they had law enforcement powers to deal with looting.

Looking back Saturday night, Governor Blanco admitted there were missteps, she insisted on all sides.

BLANCO: Did I ask the president early on for help? Yes, I did. I asked him before the storm came because I know what a storm can do to my state and I know that we need help.

He wanted to help. We both got caught in trying to make a bureaucracy work on something bigger than it ever had imagined it would have to work on.

LIN: What's becoming clear is that the misunderstandings and assumptions were also very large, slowing the response to Hurricane Katrina and her victims.

Carol Lin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Governor Blanco says that nobody in Louisiana moved slowly in responding to the crisis. She adds that Louisiana had a well thought out plan in place that prevented thousands more deaths.

Let's get back to Miles.

He's in New Orleans this morning -- hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Hello, Soledad.

You know, any time you make a plan, you probably wouldn't include music in the recovery. But this is a city that is, after all, all about music, in many respects. We'll tell you a little bit about what jazz has to do with getting people back on their feet here in the Crescent City.

That's coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: When you think of the City of New Orleans, you might think of names like Pete Fountain of Louis Armstrong or the Prevention Hall Jazz Band or the Neville Brothers. This is a city that is all about music, in many respects, music and good fun. And in the wake of Katrina, it's been kind of hard to even think and talk about how that will come back.

CNN's Dan Simon takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New Orleans pre- hurricane. This is Snug Harbor, once a thriving local jazz institution.

GEORGE BRUMAT, JAZZ CLUB OWNER: This club has been the modern jazz club for a quarter of a century.

SIMON: George Brumat owns the place and refuses to officially close up shop.

BRUMAT: We'll have music here the moment we can, even if there is not a paying customer, even if we're doing it pro bono, even if we're doing it just for our morale, just to have music.

SIMON: And the music, George says, is what he misses the most.

BRUMAT: You become addicted to it. When you do it every day, it's like a necessary infusion of energy. It's true.

SIMON: The city's distinct culture is what's kept people like George from ever leaving.

BRUMAT: You don't have to be of any social strata to have access to it. It's there. It's there for the taking. You feel it the moment you land. The moment you're in New Orleans, you feel it.

SIMON: But living here now is not easy.

BRUMAT: This is where I'm sleeping. That's my front door.

SIMON: On this day, we find him fixing himself a cup of java on a portable gas stove.

BRUMAT: More espresso.

SIMON: New Orleans was a huge coffee town well before Starbucks.

BRUMAT: French roast is kind of a New Orleans invention, right?

SIMON: Most here will tell you that New Orleans, of course, also invented jazz. Such is the life of a prominent jazz club owner.

BRUMAT: Don't worry, baby. We'll be swinging any time soon. All right? We will be. There's no choice. You can't have a United States without New Orleans. It's one of the most interesting cities in the States. Almost no other place feels like it.

SIMON: Dan Simon for CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Of course, as we've been telling you, the French Quarter, which is the heart and soul of where all that music comes from, is about the highest point in the City of New Orleans and so it has fared pretty well. Some damage. Lights are still out. But not the water damage that we've seen elsewhere.

Elsewhere, it is a scene of devastation. Go to the east and take a look at Gulfport, Mississippi, for example. The president is on his way there today. And one of the things that will be going on there today, which is in the category of good news, as they clean up and get ready, school will be in session.

We'll be back with more AMERICAN MORNING in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: It's a city of contrasts, the City of New Orleans is. We saw a tremendous amount of damage as we drove in on St. Charles Avenue down from the west into the heart of the city. We went by the convention center last night. Amazing how much it has been cleaned up. Clearly, a lot of work is underway right now. Those cleanup crews have been very busy. What a task they have ahead of them. Me, in the French Quarter, it was an amazing sight. Now, think of the French Quarter. What do you think of? Take a look at some pictures, right? Mardi Gras. That's the classic scene. This is the party that really never ends. And these pictures from Mardi Gras just last year are indicative of what you'd expect to see in the French Quarter.

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