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CNN Live Today

Rita Heads Toward Florida as Hurricane; Hurricane Rita Update; New Orleans Evacuating Again; Cruise Ships Temporary Home for Evacuees

Aired September 20, 2005 - 10:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We'll go ahead and get started.
As we do that, we want to call your attention, once again, to the left side of your screen. CNN has teamed up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to bring you the faces of children that are still missing or displaced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Now, since we have launched this initiative on Saturday morning, calls to the center have quadrupled. And even more importantly, 49 cases have been resolved. We're going to have more on this in just a few moments.

Right now let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News."

Rita is now a category one hurricane, upgraded from a tropical storm within the past hour, and making its presence felt in the Florida Keys. Thousands have been ordered out of the Keys and portions of South Florida. Governor Jeb Bush is expected to speak momentarily. We will have that live when it happens.

Right now President Bush is on his way back to the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone. He'll meet with leader in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he'll stop by a New Orleans business struggling to get back on its feet. This is trip number five for the president who has proposed a huge reconstruction effort.

Gas prices are down again, but maybe not for long. AAA says the national average for a gallon of self-serve regular is about $2.79. That's a drop of nearly two cents from yesterday. But concerns about Hurricane Rita have sent crude oil prices soaring.

And Simon Wiesenthal is being remembered for his lifetime work with the conscious of the holocaust. The world-renowned death camp survivor and Nazi hunter died today in Vienna. After World War II, Wiesenthal devoted his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals. He was 96 years old.

Rita gains strength and gains ground on the United State's southern most tip. The storm has intensified to hurricane strength. That's just within the past hour. And it's barreling towards the Florida Keys.

Right now the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, is speaking. Let's go ahead and listen in. GOV. JEB BUSH, FLORIDA: A map or a skinny black line. Rita's impacts will extend far away from the circulation center from the eye of the storm. Tropical storm force winds extend up to 120 miles outward from Rita's center, rain bands will move across Southeast Florida today and pose potential risk for flooding.

If you've not left the Keys already, stay where you are. This is now not the time to evacuate. Many people did do that yesterday, for which we're grateful. But today's the time to now is the time to hunker down. What we say around here is, turn around, don't drown. A lot of accidents take place as people at the last minute decide that they should leave and it's too late to leave the Keys right now given the wind conditions that exist.

We have responded the great work being done locally and with support from the state and federal officials, we've responded to this storm, I think, in a way that Floridians can be proud. One special needs shelter is open at Florida International University for special needs populations in Monroe County. They were all evacuated and some 48 of our most vulnerable citizens are being taken care of very well at Florida International University, along with 300 other general shelter residents. In addition to that, both Miami-Dade County and Broward County have set up shelters and 1,300 people have taken advantage of that service to them.

Yesterday we evacuated all three hospitals in Monroe County and both nursing homes and we've established a forward healthcare command at Homestead Air Force Base and are developing a re- entry plan to get healthcare services to the effected region immediately following the storm. We also have two disaster medical assistance teams staged in Miami and two on alert. We're mobilizing additional support once the storm has passed as well.

The Florida Wildlife Commission has two search and rescue teams moving into Homestead. Those are comprised to 60 Miami firefighters, 75 law officers from the FWC, the Department of Agriculture and state fire marshall, as well as 19 guardsmen from the special forces. We already have 114 trucks of ice and 229 trucks of water ready to go. And currently convoys of 50 trucks of water and 50 trucks of ice are heading do to the staging areas. In this case, that will be at the Palm Beach Fair Grounds.

And 2,400 guardsmen are mobilized, an additional 2,000 are on alert. Six black hawks and one chinook are staged in West Palm Beach and we're also positioning our out of state helicopters to prepare for the response, particularly to the Florida Keys. This will be a significant response should there be any damages done to the roadways as we prepare for this storm.

We can't say it enough, all storms, regardless of what category they are, are dangerous and Floridians, thankfully, the great majority of them understand this and are being cautious and have prepared. For those that haven't, please take the warnings of local officials and your governor very seriously. This is a very serious storm that is about to hit our state.

With permission, I'd like to say a few words in Spanish as well.

KAGAN: We've been listening into Florida Governor Jeb Bush warning about now Hurricane Rita. Basically the time to get out of the Keys, which it's hitting right now, was yesterday. And he says if you're still there, then go ahead and hunker down. They have made efforts to evacuate special needs people and hospital patients out of the area. But a number of people help standing by as well as that storm passes.

Now as we're watching Hurricane Rita, we are mobilizing crews to follow Rita's path and it's expansive reach. Our Dan Lothian is in Key Largo, Florida, our John Zarrella is even far south in Key West.

John, we'll start in the south with you.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, you know, as the governor said, now's the time to stay put here in the Keys. And as we learned with Katrina when it passed through Florida as a category one, someone made the remark that there's no such thing as a minimal hurricane. And indeed that was the case and may well be the case again here.

We're on Duvall Street right in the heart of the city. And the winds in the last half hour have begun to pick up. One of these rain squall bands moving through here. And you look down the street here you can see there's still some traffic on the street down here. Certainly a lot of media members and the LaConcha Hotel over here, where we are staying, is actually one of the refuges of last resort designated in the Keys, as well as Key West High School, and a number of other locations, hotels and other buildings all up and down the Florida Keys designated now as refuges of last resort.

Right now, though, the city officials here are, I guess you have to say, cautiously optimistic. The storm did not intensify as rapidly as they thought it would. Just now recently becoming a hurricane. That's good news, of course, if it stays this way and doesn't continue to intensify. But we still expect, Daryn, that we're going to be on the north side of the eye of this storm. So possibly taking significant storm surge here in the lower Keys, as well as hurricane force winds as the day moves on.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Already, John Zarrella, we will be checking in with you.

Now we go from the southern tip of the Florida Keys to the northern end and that's where we find our Dan Lothian. He is in Key Largo.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.

Well, in the last few minutes, as you can see here, that rain squall has intensified. It's what we've been seeing throughout the morning where you have those high wind gusts and then a downpour of rain and then it calms for a little bit. Now we're getting through that period where we're getting more rain and the wind is starting to intensify as well.

Most of the people in this particular area appear to have evacuated. I just took a walk out in front of our hotel here along Highway 1, which is a main drag that runs all the way up and down the Keys. It was essentially deserted. I did see one police car drive by. As the governor pointed out, a lot of people did heed the mandatory evacuation orders yesterday and some, in fact, were evacuating over the weekend.

There are some folks who are still here at this hotel where we are. There are mainly journalists here but there are some people who evacuated to this hotel. Now, there's a voluntary evacuation further north of here in Miami-Dade County and also in Broward County, which where Ft. Lauderdale is and in some parts of Palm Beach County as well. The big concern, of course, is all this rainfall, there could be localized flooding and rainfall effected anywhere from five to 15 inches and also that storm surge expected anywhere from six to nine feet.

Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Dan Lothian in Key Largo. Thank you. Take cover.

For millions of people in the Gulf Coast region, the big question looming now is, where is Rita headed? Let's put that question to our CNN Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras.

Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, METEOROLOGIST: Well, Daryn, heading for the Keys right now. It may not make a direct landfall but certainly going to be brushing close by Key West. We think midday today, somewhere around the noonish hour when we start to see that eye wall getting close and then early to mid afternoon where the eye gets a little bit closer towards that.

We've certainly been feeling the impacts of this, however, all morning long. There you can see the outer band all across South Florida, all throughout the Keys. There's the eye. A very large eye, by the way.

The rainfall coming down extremely heavy right now into Miami- Dade County and we're concerned, in particular, about this other this outer band here. This is the type of band that could possibly produce some rotation. There is a tornado watch which is in effect in the area as well. The rainfall is coming down extremely heavy. About one to two inches per hour. So we're likely going to see some flash flooding. There you can see Miami right here.

I believe we have a live picture from Hollywood. There you can see, you're just kind of on the edge there of that. And Hollywood showing those cloudy skies and some rough surf at this time.

Where is this going after the Florida Keys? Well, it's expected to continue to intensify. Probably still going to stay at a category one, we think, as it gets close toward Key West and then it's going to head out back into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico and intensify. And we do think it's going to be heading toward the Western Gulf.

Of course, Rita was just updated to hurricane status about 9:15 this morning. We'll get a new advisory coming in at 11:00 from the National Hurricane Center updating all the statistics and we'll see if there's any change in the forecast track. Right now Texas is looking most vulnerable.

Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Jacqui, thank you.

Emergency planners are mobilizing in advance of Rita. We're showing you now a live picture. This is Galveston, Texas. Voluntary evacuations are already there. They're already under way, even though the storm is more than 1,000 miles away from possible landfall in that region. Tomorrow the city will begin running buses for people who cannot evacuate on their own. One hundred and five years ago a hurricane swept away half of Galveston's homes and killed more than 6,000 people.

It may not be like the bull's eye in Texas, but folk in New Orleans aren't taking any risk with Rita. Mayor Nagin now urging residents to get out or stay out. A live report if is straight ahead.

Plus, the price of gas, now about as unpredictable as the hurricanes. Up, down, now possibly up again. How Rita might affect your wallet, coming up.

And neither rain nor sleet nor snow, not even a hurricane, can stop the mail. A postman's delivery to desolations (ph). That is coming up later.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: The death toll from Hurricane Katrina is approaching the grim 1,000 mark. That number rose by 90 in Louisiana alone yesterday to 736. That pushes the total for five states to 970. Officials say flood waters, as they recede, more bodies are being discovered.

With Rita threatening to follow in Katrina's footsteps, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is rolling the welcome mat back up. He did an about face, urging folks to leave just days after telling them to start coming home. Our Mary Snow is outside the convention center as the city looks toward another evacuation.

Mary, good morning.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Daryn.

And this convention center was named as a place where people can come to board buses. And we'll get to that in a minute.

But late yesterday Mayor Ray Nagin announcing that he's suspending the plan to have people come back to New Orleans. This was on the first day that people started returning to Algiers, which is on the west bank. That had suffered the least amount of flooding damage. Some of the residents saying that they are frustrated. That they were told to come back. Some telling us that perhaps the city should have waited until the full infrastructure was in place. Many of them watching the developments of Rita to see what their next move will be.

Now, earlier this morning, Miles O'Brien spoke with Mayor Ray Nagin, asking him about this message to come back and then leave. This particularly since federal officials had expressed skepticism about Nagin's plan in the first place, calling it too much too soon. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: What I'm protecting is a clear, consistent message to the citizens. You know, federal support is one thing . . .

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Is this excuse me, sir. Is this a consistent message? This is a reversal, isn't it?

NAGIN: Absolutely.

MILES O'BRIEN: How is this consistent?

NAGIN: This is another hurricane getting ready to approach us. Nobody can control that. What I'm talking about is someone has to be consistently talking to the people, the individuals of New Orleans, and I was elected to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Now, part of the evacuation plan that Mayor Nagin said yesterday was to have buses he says he has 150 buses to be here at the convention center. We're going to ask our photographer, Jerry Santos (ph), this is inside the convention center. As you can see, there are workers in here cleaning this up. This was the site of such misery as thousands of people became stranded here in this convention center, part of a desperate SOS that the major had sent out during Hurricane Katrina.

What he said yesterday is that he has buses that are waiting to evacuate people out of New Orleans 48 hours before landfall. Now, also, there's going to be buses leaving Algiers where people started going in yesterday. We talked to the city councilwoman there who's in charge and she said about one-third of the 60,000 residents are in Algiers. She's meeting with police and military members tonight about their evacuation plan as well.

Daryn.

KAGAN: It seems, Mary, like a very strange choice of asking the people to a place for people to go. I mean, who's going to want to go to the convention center knowing all the terrible things that not only happened there but the way people were stranded? Who's going to trust a government that says, yes, show up here and there will be buses?

SNOW: Absolutely. It's a very strange place. And, you know, the pictures just tell the story. And this is what it looks like cleaned up. And as you can see, all the people cleaning this up have these hazmat suits on. We're certainly not going to go in there because we don't have them on ourselves. But, you know, who would want to come here is beyond my guess. But, right, it's . . .

KAGAN: That is the plan.

SNOW: There is a long yes?

KAGAN: There's a long what? I'm sorry.

SNOW: I was just going to say, this is a long stretch. There's also one side of the convention center where the military has set up a base, too. So there is a potential for people to meet on the other side where buses continually come in and bring in military members and also workers. But, you know, this is just one section, but still, it does bring back a lot of terrible memories.

KAGAN: It's just the association. Mary Snow in New Orleans, thank you for that.

Well, President Bush is heading south. It's going to be his fifth visit to the hurricane zone. He is on route right now to the Gulf Coast to survey recovery efforts and the damage. A live report from Biloxi, Mississippi, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Showing you live pictures now. This is Hollywood Beach, Florida. A good indication of what we were listening to Governor Jeb Bush speak about at the top of the hour, saying the effects of what is now Hurricane Rita going to reach far beyond what is just the Florida Keys. This area between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami currently already getting pounded with rain and wind from Hurricane Rita.

Let's see how the markets are reacting today. Doing much better than they were this time yesterday. You can see the Dow is up 40 points. The Nasdaq also well into positive territory as well. It is up 15 points.

So back to Hurricane Rita now. It is turning toward the Gulf of Mexico. Big concern that gas prices could skyrocket again. Experts fearing that the storm will effect oil rigs and refineries. And with that fear in mind, crude oil prices jumped more than $4 a barrel yesterday. Ahead of Rita's arrival, oil companies have already started pulling workers from offshore drilling platforms. More than half of the Gulf's oil production was already out of operation because of damage from Hurricane Katrina. And in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, oil and gas prices surged to record highs here in the U.S.

President Bush is heading back to storm-battered Mississippi and Louisiana today. He left Andrews Air Force Base a short time ago for Gulfport, Mississippi. That will be his first stop. There was word that Mr. Bush has tapped Homeland Security Advisor Francis Townsend to head up the internal investigation into the White House's response into Hurricane Katrina.

For the latest on the situation along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we turn to CNN's Ted Rowlands. He is in Biloxi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Clean-up continues along the Mississippi Gulf Coast today. There is concern about now Hurricane Rita because, although Mississippi is not in the direct path of the hurricane, it could, Mississippi and the Gulf Coast, have damage in terms of wind and heavy rains. And it is last thing that people along this region need at this point.

There is debris everywhere littering the streets. And although people have been cleaning up and gathering debris, any heavy winds will scatter that debris and basically negate now two to three weeks of work. More than anything, it will be demoralizing for people that are very emotionally sensitive, as you can imagine, as they're trying to rebuild their lives.

There is some good news along the coast for some evacuees that had been staying in shelters. They are now on a cruise ship which is located in Mobile, Alabama. It will be that ship moved eventually to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. One hundred and nineteen people boarded the ship earlier this week. Another 100 plus are expected to board today. They say it's much better on the ship than it was in the shelters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ship's nice. It's kind of quiet. Nobody walking around like a normal cruise or anything, but it's real quiet. Real peaceful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People getting a lot of rest up there. It is real good accommodations. A whole lot better than the shelter actually.

ROWLANDS: FEMA is paying in excess of $190 million for the use of three cruise ships. One based along the Mississippi coast, two will be based in Louisiana. They say it is worth it to have these ships for a six-month period because there's simply nowhere else to put so many people.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Biloxi, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: So more now on President Bush. Although he has vowed to rebuild the Gulf Coast, he still is having a tough time repairing the political damage from the storm. The latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup Poll, only 40 percent of the respondents approved of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. About 35 percent approve of his handling of the economy. And about a third of the respondents approve of the way he is managing the situation in Iraq. More live pictures to show you now from the effects of Rita which is now a hurricane. These from Haulover Beach, Florida. Once again, between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale on the east coast of Florida. We'll have more on that.

Raising the worse fears of residents all along the Florida Keys and into the Gulf. Chad Myers tells where actually it will be Jacqui Jeras telling us where the new storm is headed next.

And New Orleans is not expected to take a direct hit from Rita, but still fresh concerns today about the city's already damaged levees, will they hold this time? We'll get to that in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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