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CNN Live At Daybreak

FEMA Makes Changes at the Top; New Death Toll in New Orleans

Aired September 13, 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 Tuesday, September 13.
A new leader, a new death toll in New Orleans.

As FEMA makes changes at the top, the Gulf region has a new death toll and a new focus on finding survivors.

A big oops in Los Angeles. But was it a good test of the city's response time?

And insurance claims after a disaster -- what you need to know to protect your property.

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you.

We'll have more on Katrina in just a minute.

Also ahead, tracking Ophelia -- plans in place and lessons learned.

But first, now in the news, all the niceties being put aside today on Capitol Hill. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are expected to begin asking John Roberts some pointed questions. This is day two of Roberts' confirmation hearings to become the nation's chief justice.

Iraq's president says the U.S. could withdraw as many as 50,000 troops by the end of the year. Jalal Talabani tells the "Washington Post" Iraqi forces are ready to start taking control, but his office later said the president did need to indicate that there's a timetable for withdrawal. Talabani says he plans to discuss troop reductions at a meeting today with President Bush.

Oil prices today steadied at above $63 a barrel. That's about $7 below the record high for oil two weeks ago. Analysts say the drop in price was prompted by concerns that high prices and slowing U.S. economic growth might curb demand.

To the Forecast Center and Chad -- good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

$2.64 a gallon for regular on my drive to work this morning.

COSTELLO: It's coming down.

MYERS: You know, when you lower your standards to $2.64 and that sounds good, boy, you've come a long way, after $3.15 and $3.55 were my two top ones.

Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Now for the latest headlines in our mission critical update.

Louisiana's death toll now tops Mississippi's in the wake of hurricane Katrina. At least 45 bodies were found in one New Orleans hospital. A total of 512 people in five states have died as a direct result of the storm.

Panic as rescue workers spotted what they thought was a new leak in a levee. It turned out to be a false alarm. Water briefly flowed over the repaired levee along the London Avenue Canal due to the pumping operation. But the problem has since been fixed.

Criminal charges may be filed in the investigation of a nursing home disaster in St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana. The state attorney general is investigating the deaths of 34 residents whose bodies were found still inside that home. A state representative claimed that the workers at St. Rita's Nursing Home evacuated, but left the residents behind.

For more news out of Louisiana, for that, we turn to CNN Radio's Jim Roope.

He's live in the City of New Orleans -- good morning, Jim.

JIM ROOPE, CNN RADIO CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

You know, I've got to tell you, we were talking with EMS workers yesterday when that word of that levee thing came over the police scanner and it just really caused a momentary panic there, at least a rush of panic. And I guess it's like if you pour a bucket of water into your sink too fast and it laps back over onto your shoes. And that's all that it was, thank goodness. But it really did cause a little rush there for a while.

COSTELLO: Oh, I bet.

President Bush again visited the City of New Orleans. There are new Gallup polls out today. I want to read to our viewers what they say. This is a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll. It says: "The initial response by the federal government and President Bush among blacks, 15 percent; among whites, 49 percent. In the last few days, though, those numbers have improved. Thirty-six percent among blacks say the federal government is responding pretty good now; 63 percent of whites do.

As far as the rescue workers you've been talking to in the city, where they buoyed by the president's visit?

ROOPE: They absolutely were, including some of the residents that are starting to poke their heads out of their windows after the waters are receding and they're finding out that it's OK to come out now, they're not being forced out. More of those people are telling us that they're angry with their governor and their mayor more than they are with the president.

They're more -- they were more concerned and more angry with the lack of response and what their local government was doing and they're very happy and very pleased at what the federal government is doing for them now, at least -- one man was telling me yesterday that thank goodness somebody is making some kind of movement somewhere. Those were his exact words.

COSTELLO: That Michael Brown of FEMA resigned.

Is that resonating in any way in New Orleans?

ROOPE: Well, people are -- people were talking about what was it, just a week ago or so, that the president said, "Brownie, you're doing a good job." People are talking about that, for sure. And then here we are now where he resigns.

And I guess the White House is making some quick moves and names a successor to Mike Brown. Everybody is happy about that. I don't know one person that is upset at that at all.

So that's doing well for not only residents, but also the relief workers here. Even the FEMA workers here, they just kind of shake their heads about the whole thing and go I don't know, I'm just here to help.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about the recovery of bodies. A grizzly discovery inside of a New Orleans hospital. And, of course, we've all heard about what's been discovered in a nursing home there.

How many more facilities have yet to be searched for bodies or survivors?

ROOPE: The exact number of group facilities, I'm not sure. There are a lot of them. There's a lot of assisted living facilities, too, especially as we get down into some of those areas in the poorer neighborhoods where the waters are just now receding.

I can tell you for sure, because I've seen this, rescuers are ready to go in, the soldiers are ready to go into a home to make a search. You see the look on their face, like they're not ready to see what they think they're going to see. And they come out smiling and say nobody here.

So they're very happy when they come out and realize that more people got out than they first thought. So as they get into these buildings and they find that there are -- there's nobody there (AUDIO GAP) they're going to find more -- let's face it, there's going to be hundreds more found and (AUDIO GAP). COSTELLO: All right, we lost him that time.

Jim Roope from CNN Radio reporting there. And you heard most of his report, and that's a good thing.

You also heard Jim talking about that change in management at FEMA. The agency chief, Michael Brown, stepped down amid a flurry of criticism over the handling of Katrina's aftermath. Emergency management veteran David Paulison takes over as acting director. Brown said he was stepping down to avoid further distraction from the mission at hand.

President Bush did accept the resign, saying it's time to move forward before looking back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But there will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong. And the reason why it's important for us to figure that out at a national level is that if a major event were to come, another major event, we want to make sure that there's an appropriate relationship between the state and local government. And so it's appropriate that we step back and take a look.

Here in Mississippi and in Louisiana, people want to move forward. They understand there's time to, you know, try to blame somebody. But they want to get their lives back together and that's the spirit I've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Acting Chief David Paulison is a former fire and rescue chief from Miami, Florida. But he may best be known for suggesting that Americans stock up on duct tape in the event of a terror attack.

Legislation has already been introduced to change the way FEMA does business. The plan sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton calls for FEMA to be moved out from the under the homeland security umbrella.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: To know that no storm, no act of terrorism will ever again leave us so vulnerable, so incapable of responding. This has to be a wake up call. And I have legislation, also, that would restore FEMA to the level of independence, competence and professionalism it once had. I've included in the legislation requirements that should be self-evident, that you can't have a top job in FEMA unless you actually know something about responding to an emergency. I would think that would be a pretty sensible course to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: New Acting Director David Paulison and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff are expected to hold a briefing on the hurricane recovery later this morning. And, of course, we will pass those comments on to you. We'll carry them live.

Human error being blamed for a massive blackout in Los Angeles. A worker cut the wrong line and that left nearly three quarters of a million people without power, from the San Fernando Valley to the Pacific Coast and down into Los Angeles. Traffic became a major problem. Intersections without stop lights slowed cars to a crawl. There were also people trapped in elevators. The outage lasted nearly 90 minutes.

L.A.'s police chief discussed the response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF WILLIAM BRATTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: This city in a sense as prepared as in America to not only respond to, but, more importantly, in many respects, to detect, intervene and prevent acts from occurring in the first place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Many people initially feared the outage was caused by a terror attack, but it was just a mistake.

Still to come this hour on DAYBREAK, tropical storm Ophelia heads toward the coast.

Will the Carolinas have a different preparation plan in the wake of Katrina and do they need to in the first place?

Plus, she spent some time growing up. Now Condoleezza Rice weighs in on what she calls the old South and its attitude toward race in a time of disaster.

And later, when it comes to oil and gas, will we all be paying the price for months to come?

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Let's talk a bit about Ophelia.

It's a tropical storm.

Can we go to Chad for just a quick update on where Ophelia is heading?

MYERS: Sure.

COSTELLO: Sorry to surprise you with that, but I know you're ready. MYERS: Well, I can be. I can always -- I always can be. What we have, Carol, is that the storm is to the south and east of Myrtle Beach, with the first wave, the first outer band already coming up to Cape Fear. So a lot of people say well, when is it going to hit?

Well, for the folks here in Cape Fear, it already is. Winds there were about 40 miles per hour, farther up the northeast, in the northeastern Carolina coast, not much yet. And then back down here toward Myrtle Beach not quite yet, either.

But it is certainly on its way somewhere. The landfall right here near Cape Fear and then traveling up into the northeastern sections of North Carolina.

Let's kind of zoom out a little bit more for you, then I can zoom out one more time and give you a better idea of where the eye of this storm is. It's nice to be zoomed in, but it's also nice to zoom out so you can see the center.

You're beginning to see some of the center bands here. Some more storms developing on what could be, possibly, an eye. There's been a big blow up of storms in the cells here on the east side of the storm in the overnight hours, and you can see that on the satellite, as well, the blossoming of the colors on this satellite has been very, very clear in the overnight, which means the storm is probably getting stronger -- Carol.

Back to you.

COSTELLO: OK. Well, we have Rob Marciano now. That's who we were waiting for.

MYERS: I know. I know it was stalling.

COSTELLO: But it was very useful information and we appreciate that.

MYERS: There you go.

COSTELLO: Rob Marciano is in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

What are you seeing right now -- Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, actually, it was good to hear Chad give me some information about where exactly the storm was, right now where it is. Right now, there's barely a breeze. Actually, it should be a pretty nice sunset. We had a few squalls come through last night. Just to give you an idea of where we are, we're at Atlantic Beach, which is just up the coastline from Wilmington, where there are a few mandatory evacuations underway. Right now here in this county there are not. But that may very well change later on.

North Carolina no stranger to hurricanes. These folks are kind of used to it. Last year they had hurricane Alex just kind of brush the coastline. Two years before that, it was hurricane Isabel, which came onshore as a category two and at one point was a category five. So this, in some way, is hurricane alley.

So, well, what are they doing to prep?

Yesterday we came out, I got here late yesterday afternoon and shot some shots for you. The waves breaking behind me. That's been ongoing for the past couple of days. There were a few sun breaks in between. Already some outer band sun squalls that came through yesterday afternoon.

There's a bay behind here. It's called Bogue Sound. And there's a bridge, a couple of bridges that go over. One is called the Atlantic Beach Bridge. That will be one of the bridges used to get away from this outer island bank. And if the winds get over 60 miles an hour, that bridge will be shut down. So that's a concern for folks who will want to get out.

There are -- there have been some businesses and some homes who have already boarded up. We suspect that activity will begin to increase later on today. But right now not nearly the apprehension or the anxiousness of a Katrina, for sure. This one a much weaker storm, not even a hurricane yet. Still sitting and kind of flailing out there. But it looks like, from what Chad said, it's getting better organized and people here are used to hurricanes, yes. And they're ready for this one.

So we'll keep you updated throughout the afternoon -- Carol, back over to you.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you, Rob.

We're going to get right to Doug Hoeil, the state's director of emergency management.

He's joining us now from Raleigh, North Carolina on the phone.

Good morning, sir.

H. DOUGLAS HOEIL, JR. DIRECTOR, NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: First of all, tell us what the evacuation orders are?

HOEIL: Well, to be honest with you, we've had some of our southern counties, Brunswick County, New Hanover County and some of those right down in the immediate line of fire have begun evacuations and have opened shelters for people. And we expect that evacuations will progress up the state, you know, up the coastline today, as the storm approaches and gets closer to us and the threat becomes more and more apparent.

This has kind of been like responding to a hurricane in slow motion, the way this thing has acted.

COSTELLO: Yes, it's just acting really unpredictable.

Are these evacuations mandatory or voluntary? HOEIL: To be honest with you, yesterday they were voluntary and I heard somebody say they were mandatory. I haven't been in the office yet this morning, so I don't have an answer for you there.

COSTELLO: Oh, no. Of course -- well, hopefully we'll find out in a couple of minutes. We'll try to find out that information, too.

Did your evacuation change -- did your evacuation plans change at all because of what happened to the Gulf Coast with Katrina?

HOEIL: I would say no, that's not the case here, that we are -- we've had quite a lot of experience with hurricane response. And so we have geared up like we would for any approaching hurricane. We have constant communication through conference calls with our local governments to talk about, you know, what actions they might take in advance of the storm.

We have mobilized a significant number of state assets and resources and placed them at strategic locations near where we feel like people are going to be affected by this storm. So we have readied our response like we would for any hurricane.

COSTELLO: You know, we all still have those pictures in our minds of people trapped in New Orleans with no transportation out.

Is that a problem in your state?

HOEIL: Well, for the most part we don't think so. I mean certainly we don't have the density of population that they had in New Orleans. We have encouraged, in fact, spoken very strongly to, you know, to folks to be sure that, you know, everybody does have an opportunity to leave. We've also, you know, talked to our local governments about using school buses and things of that nature if they need to for areas where you have low income populations that might not have transportation.

We want to make sure that everybody has a chance.

COSTELLO: As for the residents of North Carolina, are they a little more nervous this time? Because we always hear about people riding out the storm. Are they more, I don't know, more prone to leave this time?

HOEIL: There's a real challenge for everybody, I think. I think that citizens should be encouraged to pay heed. When local governments say there's a need to evacuate, they don't take that lightly. I mean it's a significant impact on their local businesses. So decisions that they make are made with the very best available information. This is a weak storm and so I think that, you know, you don't have to have the significant evacuations, perhaps, that you would have in a Katrina type storm, but there still may be -- I mean it is necessary to move from areas that are prone to flood.

But some people make bad decisions and bad decisions would be to stay in a place that is subject to storm surge flooding and in the event like this, because this is going to be a long duration storm and we know we're going to have some flooding problems in North Carolina.

COSTELLO: Can you tell us quickly what cities are most vulnerable?

HOEIL: Well, I think that we're looking primarily at cities and towns on the western side of the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, primarily Pamlico Sound up the Noose River, up the Pamlico River. And then as the storm passes and the wind shifts back to the west and starts blowing against the Outer Banks, there's some potential for some problems on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

COSTELLO: Well, good luck to you and thank you for joining us this morning.

We appreciate it.

HOEIL: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: Doug Hoeil, the state's director of emergency management out there in North Carolina.

Still to come on DAYBREAK, will a hurricane in August make your home heating bills go up in January? Carrie Lee breaks down the cause and effect for us.

And FEMA gets new leadership. Will a new face make a difference in the recovery effort.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A little "Business Buzz" this morning.

Summertime is not even over, but as Carrie Lee will tell us, it's not too early to start worrying about hurricane Katrina's effect on heating costs.

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Never too early, especially, well, New York at 90 degrees. That's what we're expecting today. So people are still cranking up their A.C.s. But heating oil should be on people's minds because experts are saying natural gas prices are going to be a big challenge this winter.

Now, the Energy Information Administration predicts prices could rise 71 percent, and that would translate into average natural gas prices of $12 per million BTUs this winter. By comparison, consumers paid an average of $7.50 last winter. A little technical, but it gives you an idea of the comparison.

Now, this is despite some big declines in energy prices over the past couple of weeks. Demand for oil and natural gas has tapered off recently, but supplies could remain tight heading into the peak winter season.

The Department of Energy says about 5 percent of U.S. oil refining capacity may be off-line for several months. Now, one possible solution here, this is for people in a lower income bracket, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. This is a government program that helps the neediest households pay heating and cooling bills. It serves more than five million households a year.

Some members of Congress want to increase that program's annual budget. So at least it would be a little bit of a help for some folks this season.

COSTELLO: Yes, it might be a good time to do that.

LEE: Yes.

COSTELLO: A check on gas prices.

LEE: Yes.

COSTELLO: Because, you know, we like to do this every morning. Just got it in from AAA.

LEE: OK.

COSTELLO: AAA reporting a slight decline in the price of gas. The self-serve regular average is $2.95 a gallon, and that's down $0.011.

LEE: So at least we're below $3. But still, during hurricane Katrina, gas prices did rise $0.38 over that two week period, according to Lundbergh. So, still pretty high there.

COSTELLO: Yes. And, you know, there were all those reports of gouging. And we haven't heard about the outcome of any of those reports.

LEE: We talked about it a few weeks ago right in the midst of the aftermath but I haven't...

COSTELLO: We're going to have to check in with the attorneys general of the United States.

LEE: We'll follow it from them.

COSTELLO: A look at the futures?

LEE: Yes, things looking very weak this morning and we'll see what happens once trading gets underway.

A look at producer prices, a measure of inflation, could give us some direction later this morning.

COSTELLO: All right, Carrie Lee, many thanks to you.

LEE: OK.

COSTELLO: We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you.

Thank you for waking up with us.

Chief justice nominee John Roberts says he's ready to get behind the plate, note in the batter's box.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: I will decide every case based on the record according to the rule of law without fear or favor to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It is day two of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary panel and some senators plan to play hardball with their questions.

But first, now in the news, nuclear talks with North Korea are resuming. Envoys are back in Beijing today, trying to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. But there are already problems. The communist nation is insisting on maintaining a civilian nuclear program.

New Orleans International Airport set to start limited passenger service today with 30 departures and arrivals scheduled daily. The airport has been closed to commercial travel since Katrina hit.

Some residents along the Carolina coast are being told to evacuate voluntarily as tropical storm Ophelia continues to inch closer toward them.

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