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Mixed Signals for Residents Returning to New Orleans; In Key West, Evacuations Ordered for Tourists

Aired September 19, 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. Mixed signals for residents returning to New Orleans. The mayor encourages the return, but the federal official in charge of relief says it's too soon and too dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELLEN DEGENERES, ACTRESS: Our thoughts and our prayers go out to everyone affected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Hollywood, the show goes on at the Emmy Awards with TV's biggest stars wearing magnolias to honor the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Those stories are ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Welcome back. You had a long week last week.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. A long week last week. Still trying to process it all. It's really overwhelming.

S. O'BRIEN: It was pretty amazing to see I think behind you every single perspective that you had, and you know, you showed us a lot. There was damage. I mean, there was not one shot where anything looked passable, where it looked fine. I mean, it really, I think, gives a sense of the scope of the devastation there.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. I think it's hard to relay it all on television. I hope we at least made an effort at it.

CNN has teamed up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We are showing you the faces of missing children in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. There you see them there on the screen.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, in fact we're going to will put them on the left side of the screen this morning. We're going to post those pictures. We really began it at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. You might recall we told folks about it on Friday, right before we went off the air.

Well, what happened was that calls to center then tripled; 23 cases were resolved over the weekend, 15 of them directly with CNN's help. So, obviously, it worked, and so we're going to continue it.

M. O'BRIEN: We're glad of that. With your help, more parents, more children could be reunited throughout the day. Those pictures will keep coming, and we hope there will be more happy endings to these tragic stories.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: CNN's John Zarrella is in Key West this morning, where evacuations are ordered for tourists. Residents are still allowed in. Although in some low-lying areas, there are voluntary evacuations.

John, give us the picture there.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, that's exactly right. Tourists and nonresidents have been ordered to evacuate the Florida Keys. That is for the entire Florida Keys. That went into effect at 6:00 a.m. this morning. It was only for the lower Florida Keys yesterday, but they've expanded that as of 6:00 a.m. this morning.

And folks who live in trailer parks or low-lying areas, residences, have been asked to leave. We are in Key West. Behind us, that's east out there, so Rita is out in that direction. We are on the two-by-four island of Key West, a small spit of land. The hope, of course, is that Rita will track to the south of Key West, but that would still put us on the right side of the storm, and potentially receiving hurricane force winds here.

Now, they've opened two evacuation shelters, two evacuation shelters one in Sugar Loaf Key, one at Key West High School, not too far from us here. Schools in Monroe County, of course, are closed today. This is a very tough place to get out of. It's a two-lane road, as you know, Miles, about 150 miles to go, so they want and are urging people, if they're going to evacuate, to go ahead and start doing so soon -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: John Zarrella on Key West, thank you very much. Stay with CNN for complete coverage of Rita's path.

CNN is your hurricane headquarters -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, some of the first evacuees to return to New Orleans are going to re-enter the city this morning as the Gulf region tries to turn the corner toward recovery. CNN, of course, will keep you close to the story as possible. All week, we'll be reporting zip code by zip code as New Orleans reopens.

This morning our focus is on zip code 70114. It's Algiers. That neighborhood, and that's where we find Carol Costello this morning.

Carol, good morning to you.

How does the neighborhood look? Is it ready for an influx of people? CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Residents say they're ready. Residents say the neighborhood is ready, because keep in mind, Algiers did not flood because it's at a higher elevation. Most of the damage you see was caused by the wind.

We only saw two homes totally destroyed, Soledad, by wind. The rest of the homes, you know, there is damage to the roof, trees are down, garbage is on the streets, although that's being picked up. Garbage service started up yesterday.

I'm here at Mardi Gras World. This is where the big warehouses are where all the Mardi Gras parade items are, and the big floats are here. But it's also a distribution center. And as you can see behind me they have food, and that's going to be the big problem in this neighborhood come later today, when hundreds of residents start to come back. This distribution center was set up by residents, along with the Church of Christ. Not by FEMA, not by the Red Cross. People really haven't seen those agencies around.

The big problem is the grocery stores. Only one is up and running and that grocery store has just a limited number of employees, and they're bringing those employees from out of state. So you go in, they're waiting on you five people at a time. There are long lines. The concern of Lily Duke, the woman who set up this distribution center, is people won't be able to get food. She is literally calling companies across the United States, begging for more food to come in, and she's done a terrific job. So this distribution center will open up just in a couple of hours, and she expect very, very long lines of people.

The other problems, gas stations, there aren't many open, Soledad, so people getting from here to there will have to do it by foot or on bicycle. There is no working 911 system, so they're giving out a special number where you can call the limited number of police officers available.

Now, the Army is here, and the National Guard. And I got to tell you, people really love them because they're the ones providing security right now, and all sorts of help. They're actually unloading the boxes of supplies here and doing all sorts of things for residents that, you know, city services would usually handle.

Now, you've heard of the rift between Mayor Nagin and Vice Admiral Thad Allen. FEMA doesn't want people to return. They say it's not ready. The people of Algiers say, yes, we are ready. I asked them, would you listen to the federal government, or would you listen to Mayor Nagin? They said we're not listening to the federal government; we're listening to Mayor Nagin. After all, he's from Algiers; he knows what he's talking about.

If you go across the Mississippi River from here, though, it's a whole different ballgame, because the electricity is not on in much of that area. It's on here because the electrical lines are above ground so that the electric company could come in and actually put the lines up again. In the French Quarter, they're lines are underground.

Ed Lavandera is very near the French Quarter, and, Ed, I know there are no lights at all where you are.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's incredibly dark. You know, you were talking about the rift between the mayor and the vice admiral of the Coast Guard, who's in charge of the reconstruction efforts. We do know that those two men will be meeting later today. But we've learned on this side of the river, Carol, is that many residents who are starting to come back and sneaking their way into these neighborhoods have learned that life in New Orleans right now is about improvising and making your own way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD PHILLIPS, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: The water entered this house, and it went about two inches on the first floor only.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Richard Phillips couldn't wait any longer. He wanted back inside his uptown New Orleans home, even though this neighborhood is two days away from officially reopening. Phillips is embracing the New Orleans mayor's plan to get people back quickly.

PHILLIPS: He's trying to bring people, get the business going, food and basic services, so that the people like myself can come in here and live a normal life.

LAVANDERA: Mayor Ray Nagin acknowledges people aren't returning to what they left behind, but he wants 250,000 people back in three months.

MYR. RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Because I envision us building an incredible city that is so livable, so unique, with all of the New Orleans wonderful things that everybody appreciates, that everybody is going to want to come.

LAVANDERA: But the top man in charge of the federal reconstruction effort warns it's too soon. Emergency services like the 911 system are crippled. Hospitals aren't working. Water is undrinkable, and electricity in most places are out.

VICE ADM. THAD ALLEN, U.S. COAST GUARD: There are significant challenges to bring that number of people back into New Orleans.

LAVANDERA: Phillips has stopped listening to all of the official statements. Too many mixed messages, he says.

PHILLIPS: This is what happened in the very beginning. Nobody was coordinating. Nobody was head honcho and called all of the shots.

LAVANDERA: He has taken security into his own hands. He says he can sustain himself.

PHILLIPS: People who aren't healthy shouldn't come back to the city. People who will need services, but people who are willing to do their own work should have the opportunity to come in and restore their lives.

LAVANDERA: As we were about to leave Richard Phillips, two Louisiana state officers showed up next door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were following up on some 911 calls.

PHILLIPS: Today?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's a couple of days old, a couple weeks...

PHILLIPS: No. I just came here...

LAVANDERA: These days, emergency response time is measured in days, not minutes, a reminder of what awaits people who return to New Orleans anytime soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And those are just the kind of moments that Thad Allen is talking about, but despite that, the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, says that he is happy with the way things are going so far in the efforts to repopulate the city -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Ed.

And, again, Soledad, it's such a contrast here in Algiers across the Mississippi on the West Bank. In fact, Algiers has its own water system, and it never went out during the storm, so people have -- they can drink their tap water, unlike on the other side of the river.

We'll be back with more later.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks. We'll check in with you again.

And in less than a half hour, we're going to talk live with the Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, who is of course running the federal response. He'll be in Baton Rouge this morning.

President Bush says the federal government will pay whatever it costs to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Where is the money going to come from? Suddenly tax cuts, and Social Security and prescription drug benefits and transportation spending, all of those things are back on the table.

Dana Bash is live for us at the White House this morning. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And it was members of the president's own party who are most taken aback to hear him say he would rebuild the Gulf coast without exactly offering specifics on how to do it. Now you remember Congress over the summer passed a highway bill with things like $250 million bridge to an Alaskan town with 50 people in it. It's things like that that conservatives in Congress say must be stripped from the budget if American taxpayers are going to have to foot what could be a $200 billion bill to rebuild the Gulf Coast. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN, JON KYL (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: There's a lot of fat in the current budget. I voted no on this highway bill that everybody has talked about. And if we simply take about a fourth of that and all of the various pork projects that were in that highway bill and redirect some of that to the Gulf region, we would have billions of dollars to help rebuild that area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now some members of the House of Representatives are going to propose this week legislation to cut some of the highway bill, also to delay what could be about $40 approximately billion worth of budget funding, by delaying a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.

Now, no surprise here: Republicans say the answer is to cut spending. Democrats, most of them, say the answer is tax cuts. Not necessarily to implement eliminating big ticket items like an estate tax cut.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: I think we're not level with the American people. The idea that we're either going to share the cost with everyone, including the wealthiest among us, by foregoing the tax cuts for the wealthiest, or we're going to put all of the burden on the middle class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now President Bill Clinton, the former president, said that yesterday he thinks Democrats should use this issue in the elections in 2006, 2008, that this whole idea of tax cuts is the wrong answer for this particular point in time. But, Soledad, President Bush made clear on Friday that he thinks that tax cuts are essentially off the table. He does not want to raise taxes, but really still unclear exactly how they're going to cut spending in order to answer calls from conservatives in Congress.

S. O'BRIEN: And you've got a big old price tag about to come around the corner. So we'll see what remains on the table and what is off.

Dana Bash for us at the White House.

Dana, thank you -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: A major breakthrough today in six-nation talks over the status of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. North Korea has pledged to give up its entire nuclear program, including the development of weapons. In return, the nation would receive energy and economic assistance and a security guarantee from the U.S. not to attack or invade. And in remarkable turnaround, both nations have agreed to take steps to normalize relations. Negotiators will meet again in November to go over specifics. S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, we're going to keep a close eye on Tropical Storm Rita. Chad's been talking about that storm. We'll take you live to the National Hurricane Center in Miami for the very latest on the storm's path.

M. O'BRIEN: Busy place there -- the 17th named storm.

Plus, we'll hear from the mayor of one of the cities bracing for Rita's impact. How vulnerable is Key West? Well, the only place, perhaps, more vulnerable is New Orleans. That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: All eyes on Tropical Storm Rita. That's the 'R' storm, folks, 17-named storms. Gaining strength in the Caribbean as we speak. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, sadly becoming a familiar face to us all this season. We don't say that in any way as a personal slight, Max.

Good to have you back with us.

MAX MAYFIELD, DIR., NATL. HURRICANE CENTER: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Bring us up to date on this storm. Where is it? Where is it headed?

MAYFIELD: Well, right now, the center is over Long Island and the Bahamas here. It's about 240 miles southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas, and it's a 60-miles-per-hour tropical storm that we do think it will strengthen and will likely be a hurricane as it passes through the Florida Straits. We have a hurricane warning out for all the Florida Keys. And I hate to say this here, but it's headed into the Gulf of Mexico, and by Thursday, it's going to be here in this central Gulf, and folks along the Texas and even along the Louisiana coast are going to have to watch this very, very carefully.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, there you've said Louisiana. I want to ask you about that this a moment.

But first, talk about Key West. If you had to pick vulnerable spots in the U.S., you'd pick New Orleans and Key West. Key West is a little bit above sea level, but not very well protected. Are you convinced post-Katrina, they will be listening careful to the warnings?

MAYFIELD: That's right. And there are already some mandatory evacuations under way in the Florida Keys for all of the nonresidents, people in mobile homes, and one of the concerns down there is with the storm surge flooding, depending on exactly where the track goes here, they could easily have six to eight feet of storm surge in the Keys with the, you know, wave action on top of that. So this is something that, you know people in the keys really need to pay very close attention to and heed the advice of local officials.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about what happens once it gets into the Gulf of Mexico. With the levees so compromised around New Orleans, it doesn't take much of a storm. As a matter of fact, just a heavy rainfall could cause real problems there. Will you be changing the warnings, the evacuation orders as a result of all of that?

MAYFIELD: Well, you know, we started out a long time to go here, and the actual forecast is right now has it heading towards the Texas coast. In five days' time here what will determine the steering here is the high pressure that is currently anchored over Louisiana and Texas. But with time, that's forecast to erode and move to the east, and that may let Rita turn more up towards the north.

So at this time the folks in Texas and even the Louisiana coast just need to monitor this very carefully. We still got plenty of time here, the steering currents can change, but this is definitely becoming a concern for the northwestern Gulf of Mexico.

M. O'BRIEN: Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, thanks very much.

MAYFIELD: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Rita is expected to gain strength, as Max just said, could pose a threat to the Keys, as well as the Gulf Coast. Jimmy Weekley is the mayor of Key West, Florida.

Mr. Mayor, good to have you with us. Tell us about your evacuation order so far, just aimed at tourists.

Why not a complete evacuation order at this point?

MYR. JIMMY WEEKLEY, KEY WEST, FLORIDA: We have to evacuate the tourists before we ask our residents to leave. We have a 24-hour evacuation for our residents. We have to make sure that the tourists are off of U.S. 1 prior to our evacuation notice for our residents. Over the weekend, we had over 15,000 bikers here, so we started that evacuation yesterday at 12:00.

And walking around the city yesterday, and driving around, I noticed that most of the visitors had, in fact, evacuated. There were still a few that were around town. They'll probably be leaving this morning.

Later on today, we'll make the decision as to evacuation of our residents. However, any of the residents that live in low-lying areas have already been asked to voluntarily evacuate.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course it's worth reminding folks there's one way in and one way out, right?

WEEKLEY: Absolutely. It's two-lane highway, approximately 140 miles, and it's only two lanes, so there will be a lot of traffic on the roads.

M. O'BRIEN: Everybody, of course, has Katrina on their mind right now. You've dealt with a lot of hurricanes there in Key West over the years. How much has Katrina changed the response?

WEEKLEY: You know, I don't think it's just Katrina. I think the events of last year of Charley, of Ivan as well, has also made people rethink whether or not they would stay during a hurricane or not.

Obviously, it's going to depend on the category of the storm. What we're telling people is whether it's a one, or a two or anything else, that if a hurricane evacuation notice is given, they should, in fact, plan on evacuating. We would like to see as many people, as many of our residents that can, will evacuate. Once that notice is given, we asked people yesterday to start planning for the hurricane and to start putting together their storm shutters and their packages, protecting their properties and to make sure that if the notice was given that they do take notice of that and leave.

However, Key West being the way it is, a lot of people, you know, want to stay here and fight out the storm.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, you bring up a good point. The two most vulnerable places in the U.S., New Orleans and Key West, sort of have a similar mindset, a laissez-faire approach to life. Does that make it harder to issue these evacuation orders?

WEEKLEY: Yes, it does make it harder, because you know, even some that have experienced more serious storms in the past, you know, still will not evacuate. They just feel that this is their home, this is where they want -- this is where they want to be. If there is any kind of damage, they want to make sure they are here to try to protect their property. So it does make it more difficult, and you know, we -- Konk (ph) is a muscle, and it's a very tough muscle. so a lot of the old Konks here, as Key Westerns are known, will not evacuate at all. They will stay and ride the storm out for various reasons.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's hope the storm conks out.

WEEKLEY: Yes, that's for sure, we do.

M. O'BRIEN: Mayor Jimmy Weekley, Key West, Florida, good luck down there.

WEEKLEY: Thank you now.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, that storm obviously hasn't hit yet. Tropical Storm Rita, already, though, having an effect on oil prices.

Andy Serwer is going to have a look at that as he minds your business. coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Business news now. Not a good forecast for oil prices or OPEC output. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.

We just heard Max Mayfield from the National Hurricane Center talking about the dangers of Tropical Storm Rita. None of this lost on the financial markets this morning, Soledad. Worries about Rita driving oil prices higher this morning, up 78 cents to 63.78.

And here is the chart. You can see how we really peaked out there at over $70, almost $71 right after Katrina. We've dropped. Now we're ticking back up again. And this sure has been a very difficult season with the hurricanes and tropical storms.

Meanwhile, in Vienna, OPEC begins its meetings today, two days of meetings there, and some very mixed signals coming out of that city about whether or not this group is going to be increasing oil production.

Initially, they had talked about bumping up production to help prices. Now, apparently, the word is, though, that the problem is not the supply of oil; the problem is refinery capacity. In other words, not enough refineries to turn that oil into gasoline, so why should they increase output? And so the argument goes on and on and back and forth.

S. O'BRIEN: When is that going to be decided. I mean, do we know? Will there be an answer at the end of this meeting today?

SERWER: Probably tomorrow will be the definitive answer.

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

SERWER: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get to Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, we'll talk live with the man in charge of the federal relief effort in New Orleans. Vice Admiral Thad Allen tells us why he is worried about the city's repopulation plan. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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