Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

A Look at the Repair Efforts in New Orleans; Members of Senate Judiciary Committee Beginning to Question John Roberts

Aired September 13, 2005 - 07:00   ET

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien, live in New Orleans. I'm standing on top of the patched section of the 17th Street Canal floodwall. You remember that breach. Take a look at pictures from two weeks ago. This is the breach that caused so much water to be unleashed on a huge part of New Orleans. We'll tell you about the repair efforts, how well they are going, and we'll tell but a new report that there may be even more extensive damage to the levee system which protects southeastern Louisiana -- Soledad.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Soledad O'Brien in New York. Erratic and obstinate Ophelia. The tropical storm still swirling just off the Atlantic Coast, moving ever so slowly toward the Carolinas. Hurricane warnings are posted now, and some people are being told to get out.

And on Monday, it was polite, there were pleasantries, but things are expected to get much tougher for Judge John Roberts as senators begin to ask tough questions, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. Welcome back, everybody.

Let's get right to Miles O'Brien this morning, because, Miles, really, I think where you are is kind of the big news out of the New Orleans today. We're getting word late yesterday that maybe there was a more extensive levee break or a new levee had broken. Is that the case? What's happening?

M. O'BRIEN: Well, there's quite a few things to untangle here, Soledad. First of all, let me set the scene for you, tell you where I am. I'm standing on top of the repaired breach, that huge breach in the 17th Street Canal floodwall. This repair is holding just fine for now. The Army Corps of Engineers is out here 24/7 monitoring it to make sure that essentially 2,000 sandbags that I'm standing on, 2,000 huge sandbags, don't spring any leaks. About four miles from here, the London Avenue Canal yesterday, a similar kind of repair using those sandbags did, in fact, spring a small leak. The Corps of Engineers has taken care of that.

Meanwhile, a more comprehensive analysis has occurred of the levee system in general, all around New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. And the picture is not good, because some outlying levees may be in trouble as well.

Joining me to talk more about this is Colonel Richard Wagenaar, who is the district commander for the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers. Colonel, give us a sense of these levees, these outlying levees in St. Bernard parish and what the significant of them being undermined is.

COL. RICHARD WAGENAAR, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: They generally protect the parishes from hurricane protection and high water. The one along the Mississippi River, Gulf Outlet, is virtually gone from the storm.

M. O'BRIEN: When you say it's gone, that means that on a daily basis, they wouldn't necessarily get additional water for it, but if a storm were to come in, they'd have less protection?

WAGENAAR: Correct. They'd have zero protection on one side of their parish at this time.

M. O'BRIEN: How big a levee is this this? When you say gone, is there nothing left?

WAGENAAR: There are just portions of it. I estimated yesterday about 90 percent of it is gone. It's about a 17-foot levee.

M. O'BRIEN: Seventeen-foot levee which stretches how long a distance?

WAGENAAR: Approximately 10 miles.

M. O'BRIEN: So 10 miles, 17-foot levee that is gone.

What are the implications for St. Bernard Parish as they try to rebuild, absent that levee?

WAGENAAR: Well, right now they have a small six-foot or so levee that is still partially there. But the hurricane protection, should another storm come in, could do more damage than it already has.

M. O'BRIEN: This assessment of the levees, which obviously is still ongoing, have you reached the point where you can say this is all of the damage, or are you still looking at possible damage in other places?

WAGENAAR: We are still looking. A lot of helicopter flights overflying the areas, because we virtually can't get to those areas right now.

M. O'BRIEN: So has it surprised you how extensive the damage is to these levee system?

WAGENAAR: Very surprising. We never expected a storm would take out these levees the way it has.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Colonel Richard Wagenaar with the Army Corps of Engineers. He's head of the district here, and we will be back with him in just a moment to talk a little more about what has gone on here, how long it will take to get that water pumped out, and some of the issues in general about the antiquated system of pumps which were designed to protect New Orleans in the case of a hurricane.

In New Orleans this morning, kind of a shocking discovery that people are beginning to comprehend, the discovery yesterday of 45 dead bodies inside a New Orleans hospital. All kinds of questions about the circumstances surrounding those deaths.

CNN's Sean Callebs joins us live now from downtown New Orleans, near the French Quarter.

Sean, what do we know?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Indeed, Miles. Forty-five bodies were pulled out of Memorial Hospital sometime on Sunday. That according to state officials. But exactly how they passed away, was it before the storm, during, or after, still remains unclear. A spokesman for the parent company of the hospital tells us that no patients died because of lack of food, water or medical treatment, or the fact that the conditions in the hospital were very dire. Remember, this was a hospital that was basically flooded out, and temperatures inside got very hot, above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. However, the hospital says their nurses, doctors were giving the patients care, and they evacuated all living patients out of that hospital before Friday of last week.

The coroner, medical examiner will, indeed, be investigating this, but this is the largest number of bodies found in one location to date, and raises the death toll to 280 right now.

You also remember that a little to the north, about 12 miles at a hospital, a triage unit had been set up at the airport there. Well, that is gone. And today, some limited air service will resume at New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport, but only a handful of planes will be flying in, basically a symbolic gesture. We know Northwest, Continental and Delta are involved in this. They're going to have to do extensive to the terminals there, at least two of the terminals. Authorities expect to find some hidden damage once they begin looking at that as well.

Meanwhile here in the city itself, legions of emergency workers are doing what they can to try and get the upper hand on the disaster caused by the aftermath of Katrina, just miles and miles of muddy, nasty streets as the floodwaters continue to recede. However, the news we're getting, Miles, is it could take a full three months before drinking water is restored to the city -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Sean Callebs, thank you very much. It really is, in many respects, a tale of two cities here, Soledad. I'm standing sort of on the wall between them. To the right of me is a flooded-out section. No sign of improvement there yet; although the water has receded somewhat, it still is very deep. On the other side, where Sean is, where it is drier, definite signs of improvement -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles, thanks. We'll check back in with you in just a couple of minutes.

Excuse me. A new man is charge in federal emergencies today. David Paulison has been promoted to the acting director of FEMA. He's a former fire chief, 30 years experience in disaster management. Paulison replaces Michael Brown. He resigned on Monday.

A new CNN/"USA Today/Gallup poll reflects the public's disapproval of how the president is handling Hurricane Katrina. Fifty-four percent of the respondents don't think he's doing a good job.

Brings us right to Suzanne Malveaux. She's live at the White House for us.

Good morning to you, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: First, let's begin with Paulison. He's obviously a FEMA insider. But what else do you know about him?

MALVEAUX: He's really the kind of insider that the administration is hoping will help rebut this criticism that the agency only hires political friends or those with little emergency management experience. As you said, of course he is a career firefighter. He is also a certified paramedic. And also he was chief of Miami-Dade Fire Department, who handled some really important crises, Hurricane Andrew as well as the crash of the Valujet 592 in the Everglades. This is somebody who certainly has a lot of experience.

S. O'BRIEN: I want to ask you another question, if I can. There's polls out there that now show the reaction to how Katrina was handled. It's been very much split along racial lines. What is the White House saying about those numbers? Are they concerned, in fact, that African-Americans seem to think the government responded slowly because most of the people were black?

MALVEAUX: Well, Soledad, you know, it's a very good point, because the administration has been dogged by that issue, by that question, because so many of those abandoned were black and were poor. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll shows that Americans are split over this issue. It shows that 60 percent of blacks believe that race did play a role in this, whereas 12 percent of whites believe that.

President Bush was asked directly that question on whether or not race played any kind of part in the widely perceived sluggish response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort. When those Coast Guard choppers, many of whom were first on the scene, were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin; they wanted to save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: And, Soledad, today, of course, President Bush is not only going to be dealing with domestic issues, but also international issues as well. Later at the White House, he is going to be hosting Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, and then later of course he'll be at -- in New York meeting with the United Nations, some world leaders headed in your direction -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: We'll be following his path then.

Suzanne, thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Suzanne's at the White House for us this morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, this morning, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- and I should mention, of course, CNN is your hurricane headquarters. We can show you on the screen; my words can match it, too.

But let's talk politics now. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are beginning to question John Roberts, President Bush's choice for chief justice of the United States, which brings us to Bob Franken. He's on Capitol Hill for day two of Roberts confirmation hearings.

Bob, good morning to you.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Monday, was kind of polite; everybody was sort of nice. Do you think that's going to disintegrate and things will get a little bit rougher and tougher today?

FRANKEN: Well, as we're finding out, Roberts likes to use sports analogy, so let us do so also. He is going to step in the ring today and probably do a lot of bobbing and weaving.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you would raise your right hand...

FRANKEN (voice-over): Given Roberts' reputation for affability, the betting is that he will glide through these hearings and sidestep any pointed questions about his legal agenda.

JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE NOMINEE: Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules. They apply them.

FRANKEN: That will hardly satisfy those senators ready to fire hardball questions at Roberts.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA), JUDICIARY CHAIRMAN: You Judge Roberts have the prerogative to answer the questions as you see fit or not to answer them as you see fit. FRANKEN: Committee Democrats don't see it that way.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: This hearing is John Roberts' job interview with the American people.

FRANKEN: A tough interview by the skeptics who profess serious doubts about Roberts' views on civil rights, abortion rights.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: One of the most important issues that needs to be addressed by you is the constitutional right to privacy. It would be very difficult, and I said this to you privately and I said it publicly, for me to vote to confirm someone whom I knew would overturn Roe v. Wade.

FRANKEN: Roberts' supporters insist many Democrats are merely trying to goad him into tripping up.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Don't take the bait. Do not head down that road.

FRANKEN: One Republican was almost overcome by passion.

SEN. TOM COBURN (R), OKLAHOMA: My heart aches for less divisiveness, less polarization, less finger pointing, less bitterness, less mindless partisanship, which at times sounds almost hateful to the ear of Americans.

FRANKEN: Roberts, true to form, was less emotional, but in effect was saying in his polite way bring it on.

ROBERTS: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you members of the committee. I look forward to your questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: And we'll see how he feels about that after today's questions. But most people feel like it's just another bumpy day as he starts heading down that path which will take him to the Supreme Court building just up the street -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, maybe a bumpy day, Bob, but I got to ask you. Is there any indication that, in fact, he won't be confirmed, no matter what questions are thrown his way?

FRANKEN: Well, not very much. It would be a big surprise. Surprises do happen. But if there is no surprise, it's just going to be a day where everybody gets to sat his position, or rather Roberts, for the most part, refuses to state his position, and then the road will continue, as I said, to that marble building up the street.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Bob Franken for us this morning. Bob, thanks.

CNN's going to have coverage today of the Roberts confirmation hearing on a special the situation room. That begins at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. And let's get right back to New Orleans and Miles.

Good morning again, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning, Soledad.

I'm standing on top of one of the temporary breach fixes here in new Orleans. There are about five of them. Thousands of sandbags involved in making this happen. This happens to be the 17th Street Canal fix. But now the process is and the concern is, how long will they hold? A levee not far from here yesterday sprung a small leak, and the Corps of Engineers went back to into action trying to repair it. We'll give you an update of that and some other matters relating to the levee system here when AMERICAN MORNING continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back. I'm Miles O'Brien, reporting live from New Orleans, right beside the 17th Street Canal, standing on top of a very important repair. This was a breach that unleashed a tremendous amount of water and covered a significant portion of city of New Orleans, and beyond actually.

And while the breach is fixed, there are all kinds of questions how to maintain the fixes. And ultimately, what went wrong here, and thus how to better design a flood wall for future storms.

Joining me to talk a little bit about this is the man in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers here, Colonel Richard Wagenaar.

Colonel, first of all, let's talk about that problem with the London Avenue Canal yesterday. Similar kind of patch to this. Thousands of big sandbags, sandbags the size of two SUVs in some cases. It began leaking a little bit, or there was a problem with it. Explain what happened and how you fixed it.

WAGENAAR: What happened is we had the canal closed off so no more water could come into the canal. The pump station number three came online, started pumping water down the canal, and that overtopped our repair. The repair was a little bit low, so this morning we're going to come in with more sandbags using Blackhawk helicopters to build up the height of the repair so that we can get the pump station online this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course what this underscores is these repairs are temporary, and they're going to require a tremendous amount of maintenance until a more permanent fix can be derived?

WAGENAAR: Well, going to do a lot of repairs, semipermanent repairs here, probably in the next two or three months, and then permanent repairs long-term.

M. O'BRIEN: Before you do any permanent repairs, you need to know why five floodwalls failed. What is the leading theory right now? Is there some sort of design flaw, or was this a stronger storm than these floodwalls were designed to withstand? WAGENAAR: I think all of these are going to be looked at separately, because there could be separate causes for each one. Design flaw could be one issue, construction flaw, potential over- topping, which is the leading theory that caused erosion on the backside. And then another theory is barges or something put pressure on the wall and caused it to topple.

M. O'BRIEN: I know there is a barge inside this neighborhood not far from where we stand. The question is, did it cause the breach here, or did it just flow through after the breach occurred. We don't know that, do we?

WAGENAAR: We do not. Our engineers are going to come in here and look at it very carefully. They are just as concerned to try to figure out what happened on these floodwalls.

M. O'BRIEN: The big concern now, too, is the term you used is de-watering; it's pumping out the city. You don't have a lot of the pumps online yet that should be online, some of the significant pumps for the city of New Orleans designed to do this draining. It's taking a long time. And the result is the damage to really a tremendous number of homes is significant. Do we have any numbers on homes that might be absolutely beyond recovery?

WAGENAAR: I've heard estimates over a hundred thousand. That's not really our area, but I've heard estimates of that many being damaged.

M. O'BRIEN: Over a hundred thousand homeowners that won't be able to go back to their homes, perhaps not even set foot inside?

WAGENAAR: Right, and I think that is one of the challenges coming up for the local government is to determine how they're going to control and let people come look at their homes.

M. O'BRIEN: The current estimate is October -- that comes from the corps -- of having New Orleans relatively dry. Is that a realistic number? Do you think that's going to happen?

WAGENAAR: I think certain neighborhoods. They're breaking it down by neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods will be done in early October. Other ones probably the middle of the October, late October. If everything goes right, Mother Nature doesn't give us any rain and our pumps keep working.

M. O'BRIEN: Final thought here. Whenever you figure out what happened here, why it failed, there will be a lot of pressure and a lot of desire to build something that could withstand a category-five storm. Is that possible?

WAGENAAR: I think it's possible to build something to sustain or go against what we think is a category-five now. But at the end of the day, Mother Nature is going to have a say in what really happens.

M. O'BRIEN: Colonel Richard Wagenaar who is the district commander for the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers, obviously a very busy man right now. Thanks you for your time -- Soledad.

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

Still to come this morning, what a difference a week makes. It looks like gas prices are slowly coming back to Earth after some post- Katrina record highs. Andy's got a look at that. That's coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Business news now. Some relief at the pump as oil prices sink toward pre-Katrina levels. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning. Talking about gas and oil again.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: That's right, gas prices slipping a little bit more, which is great news, Soledad. Now, $2.95 is your national average for unleaded regular. Interestingly, lowest gas prices in the nation, where they are needed the most, on the Gulf Coast, $2.81. The Northeast still paying well over $3, $3.05.

S. O'BRIEN: But isn't that completely counterintuitive? I mean, shouldn't the Gulf Coast, which has obviously been hammered, and the pipelines destroyed, and all of their rigs, a number of rigs have some big problems, shouldn't they actually be paying more? Even if -- I mean, morally, that's horrible, but shouldn't they be?

SERWER: You could argue that, but I guess the oil companies are cutting those people a break, which suggest maybe they have more over the pricing than they've suggested, but that is a whole long debate.

Meanwhile, the price of oil has slipped to $63 a barrel, Soledad, down 11 percent.

Look at that chart. You can really see, the hurricane hits, it's over, and then the price of oil drops 11 percent, down from $71 a barrel.

Moving over to the markets. We really continue to have a good run here in terms of stocks for investors. Up yesterday, except for the S&P there. And one big deal to tell you about, the nation's number-two automaker is selling the nation's number-one car rental business. That would be Ford is selling Hertz to some private investors for $5.6 billion. Excuse me. Investors including Merrill Lynch, so a big deal there.

S. O'BRIEN: OK, great. Andy, thanks.

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to Miles. He's in New Orleans this morning on a levee.

Hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad. In just a few moments, we're going to talk to one of many small business owners faced with all kinds of problems right now in the wake of Katrina. He's a man who runs a security business, has 26 employees, but he can only account for about six of them. How he's going to pick up and move on from here, we'll have the answer for you after a break on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com