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Tropical Storm Rita Barreling Toward Florida Keys; President Bush Heading Back to Gulf Coast Region Again Today

Aired September 20, 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. Tropical Storm Rita barreling toward the Florida Keys. The storm expected to become a hurricane sometime this morning. But where is it going after Florida? That still anybody's guess -- Carol.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Costello in New Orleans. Good morning to all of you.

Coming up, coming or going? Residents here told they could return to their homes. They're now being told to get out once again over concerns Tropical Storm Rita could be heading this way.

O'BRIEN: And President Bush is heading back to the Gulf Coast region again today, his fifth trip since Katrina. But is it too late to repair the political damage? On this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. Once again today, CNN is teaming up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. On the left side of your screen, as you can see now, the faces of Katrina's divided families. So far, CNN has been instrumental in reuniting 21 families.

If you have any information, please call the number at the bottom of your screen.

We begin this morning with Tropical Storm Rita. The storm gaining strength and raising fears it could eventually hit the Gulf Coast.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Evacuation order in Key West is mandatory. The question is, are people leaving? A long tradition there of sort of riding out storms. Rob Marciano standing by in Key West. But I suspect, Rob, in the wake of Katrina, and of course a lot of people there remember George back in '98, maybe people taking things seriously?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, as a matter of fact, you mentioned George in '98, that was a category-two storm that came through. At one point, the local national weather service office here in Key West said this storm should be worse, and that could create more problems than George did in 1998. It look looks like the storm may not as bad, but could very well be equivalent to George.

So you know, how are folks reacting here, especially after Katrina? Well, folks who live in Key West, they're an interesting breed, and a bit of an eclectic, carefree folk, so it's difficult to scare them. They certainly respect it a little bit more.

I mean, look at the preparations. Nearly every home and residence here is boarded up, and you know, they're no stranger to hurricanes. They have the plywood, and in some cases, metal shutters that they can throw up seemingly within minutes. So preparations to protect at least property is under way.

As far as protecting life, well, obviously the best thing to do is to heed the warning of a mandatory evacuation which was issued for the entire Keys. And so a lot of folks headed over the overseas highways to get out of here.

But only about half left, Miles, and that leaves, you know, 12,000 or 13,000 people here in Key West to ride out the storm, most of which say to me when I ask, hey, what's your gameplan? They say, well, I do have a plan: I either stay in a secure structure that has a way to get up the stairs if the water starts to rise, or I have a friend or a friend of a friend who has got an even better place. So hopefully no one will get hurt on this. They will be out and about, though, you can be sure of that. Interesting people here in Key West.

Back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right, Rob. We're taking a look, by the way, at live pictures now showing the loop over Key West. I'm curious about transportation there. A lot of people who live there, as you well know, get around on bicycles and mopeds. Is there a backup transportation plan?

MARCIANO: Well, they had buses come in yesterday, and they left from the high school. The high school, by the way, is the shelter that they use for storms, but that shelter is closed, because any time a storm is forecast to be a category-two storm, they hit the mandatory-evacuation deal, and that means they close the shelters, because they don't want even people going shelters. They want to encourage them to get out. So yesterday, they did have a line of buses picking people up at the local high school.

But the mayor said, as of midnight last night, that's it, you're on your own. If you're staying around, we're not coming out to get you, especially if the winds get to 50 miles an hour, which sounds like they will later on today -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Rob Marciano, be safe there in Key West.

Now to Carol in New Orleans.

Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning, Miles.

Let me explain where I am. I am actually on top of a building on the east side of the Mississippi River. You can see behind me, the lights that are on in the city of New Orleans. And you know, the encouraging part is you can see traffic on the highway. So the city is beginning to come back to life. Actually, we were out driving around yesterday on I-10. I-10 experienced a traffic jam. We were so excited about that, we jumped out of our cars and began interviewing people in line. Most of them were coming back into the city, because the mayor invited them back home. Everybody else on the highway were, like, construction trucks. They were bringing things in to rebuild the city. And then this possibility of another storm and another flooding disaster led the mayor to issue this edict: You might have to get out by Wednesday; maybe you have to get out sooner. I'm telling you, people are confused.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYR. RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: We are suspending all re-entry into the city of New Orleans as of this moment.

COSTELLO (voice-over): New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did an about- face Monday, ending his controversial repopulation plan, blaming it on the potential risk from another storm bearing down, Rita.

Those words in stark contrast to the mayor's optimistic announcement last Thursday, when he revealed a plan to bring people back quickly.

NAGIN: We will reopen up this city, and almost 200,000 residents will be able to come back and get this city going once again.

COSTELLO: Although standing side by side at a press conference, the mayor and the man in charge of the federal relief effort, Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, were not seeing eye to eye. Allen said the mayor should slow down and urge residents to delay their return. He did that in a statement Saturday.

He said, "There are continued concerns that the damaged electricity, water system and safety systems are not restored to a level that can meet the basic needs of businesses and residents who return."

With their differing views playing out in public, Allen, again, took issue with the mayor's timeline for re-entry, telling AMERICAN MORNING yesterday...

VICE ADM. THAD ALLEN, U.S. COAST GUARD: It's pretty problematic, Soledad when you look at what needs to happen to have potable water in place and a 911 system in place. I would put a time element on it, but it's kind of impossible to tell. We need to take these things and work them as fast as we can, because we're all in agreement, we need to get that general population back in there. We're just asking the mayor to work with us on that problem.

COSTELLO: And as the mayor issued his repopulation reversal, he addressed his discontent with Vice Admiral Allen.

NAGIN: The admiral is a good man, and I respect him. But when he starts talking to citizens of New Orleans, that's kind of out of his lane. You know, there's only one mayor of New Orleans, and I'm it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And stay with AMERICAN MORNING. In less than a half hour, we will have an extensive interview with the New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin. And I'm sure we look forward to what he has to say this morning, because I'm telling you, people are confused.

Also President Bush applied direct pressure on the mayor to get him to change his mind. And the president plans to be back in New Orleans again today after a stop in Mississippi.

Dana Bash live at the White House with more.

Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

And the goal of this trip is really the same as the first four that the president took to this region. It is to be a presence on the ground, show leadership, show a nitty-gritty involvement with the cleanup, with the reconstruction.

But this White House, Carol, is still trying to erase the perception that they understand was ingrained three weeks ago, that the president did not do enough initially to help the victims of Katrina.

The president will head to Gulfport, Mississippi at first, and then he will go to New Orleans. He will talk there to folks about Tropical Storm Rita, potentially coming there. And then he will visit a business in that recovering city -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I know the president's poll numbers, well, only four out of 10 people approve how President Bush is handling Hurricane Katrina, but that's not his only problem, is it, Dana?

BASH: No. In the latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, Carol, across the board, the numbers are pretty much as low as they have been for this president since he has been in office in some key areas. First of all, his approval rating is just 40 percent. But on issues like the economy, the handling of that, 35 percent. That is the lowest ever, according to this poll. And same with Iraq, his handling of Iraq, 32 percent.

But what really gives this White House pause is how much the president's number one asset, leadership, has plummeted in the wake of Katrina. Take a look at these numbers. The latest poll shows 49 percent believe that Mr. Bush is a strong leader. That's down from 52 percent earlier this month, 60 percent at the end of August. And, Carol, that 60 percent number was about the lowest until -- up until that time, since the president had been in office.

That's why what happened here yesterday, which you alluded to a little earlier, is so significant, the president getting involved publicly with what is going on in New Orleans, saying that the evacuation needs to -- repopulation, I should say, needs to stop. That is quite an uncharacteristic thing for President Bush to do, but it's one the White House knows he has to keep doing to continue to show the kind of leadership people think was lacking -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash live at the White House this morning.

Let's head back to New York and Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Carol.

World famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal died today. He was 96 years old. He died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, Austria. Wiesenthal became the conscience of a generation purely by chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Simon Wiesenthal was a prisoner in a string of Nazi death camps during World War II. American troops rescued him in 1945. He weighed less than a hundred pounds.

Unlike many survivors, Wiesenthal chose to stay in Europe after the war, dedicating his life to hunting down those responsible for the horrors of the camps, the death of six million Jews, 89 of them Wiesenthal's relatives.

DR. ROBERT ROZETT, YAD VASHEM: I think that unquestionably, without Simon Wiesenthal, much less would have been done, particularly the nations of the West. I think that he was very important in keeping the question of war criminals on the agenda, especially the 1960s and '70s.

O'BRIEN: An architect by trade, Wiesenthal had no training or background to help him in his overwhelming task. But he was determined never to allow the world to forget the millions murdered by the Nazis, so he combined the role of detective and prosecutor to hunt down the killers.

RABBI MARVIN HIER, FOUNDER, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: His greatest accomplishment was that he showed the world what one person determined to do the right thing can accomplish.

O'BRIEN: Wiesenthal's efforts led to more than 1,100 suspected Nazi war criminals being brought to trial.

But he expanded his work to fight for the rights of victims of oppression every why. He received countless awards for his work, but was determined that the center he founded would be his greatest legacy, continuing his work after his death.

MARK REGEV, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTRY: In the fight, he supports the fight against racism and injustice. He helped make this planet a better place.

O'BRIEN: Simon Wiesenthal died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Vienna. He was 96. He'll be buried in Israel. (END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Among the hundreds Wiesenthal helped catch, Adolph Eichmann, mastermind of the so-called "Final Solution" and the policeman who sent Anne Frank to her death in a Nazi concentration camp.

Still to come on American morning, a tough choice for the New Orleans businesses that just started returning. Will they leave again because of Rita?

And an update on the path of Tropical Storm Rita. We'll go live to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back.

Tropical Storm Rita nearing hurricane strength as it makes its way toward the Florida Keys, as you can see there. For the latest forecast, we go live now to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Hurricane specialist Richard Knabb joining us this morning.

Richard, good to have you with us.

RICHARD KNABB, HURRICANE SPECIALIST: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Bring us up to date on the strength and the direction of this storm right now.

KNABB: Well, the good news overnight is that Rita has not strengthened yet. It's still a tropical storm, but a very strong one with sustained winds near 70 miles per hour. And the center of the storm is about 150 miles east-southeast of Key West, and it's moving west-northwest at about 15 miles an hour. So mid-day, early afternoon is when we think it will make its closest approach, perhaps directly over the lower Florida Keys.

But bad weather is already starting to occur over extreme Southern Florida and the Florida Keys.

O'BRIEN: So it's on the cusp of become becoming a hurricane?

KNABB: That's correct, an we have an aircraft reconnaissance plane en route right now. Within the hour, we should some have new information, and they may very well find that it has strengthened. We're not sure what we'll find yet.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Katrina parallels here. In some respects, this storm parallels Katrina, doesn't it?

KNABB: In some respects. I mean, every storm is different. Some of the similarities to Katrina with Rita are its early formation mechanisms, the fact that it didn't form until it got relatively close to the United States, and the fact that it's passing over extreme Southern Florida, and that we think it has the potential to become a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, but we're still several days away from any potential landfall on the Gulf coast. Everyone from Louisiana through Texas and into northern Mexico could be impacted late in the week.

O'BRIEN: Of course just mentioning that prospect to folks in the Gulf Shores of Louisiana and Mississippi, and for that matter, Texas, sends shivers down their spine. Can we be fairly certain that this storm will strengthen, as Katrina did, over the Gulf because of the warm waters there?

KNABB: Well, Katrina became a category five over the Gulf of Mexico, and we can't be sure that that's going to happen right now. It's not even a hurricane yet. But we do think conditions are favorable for Rita to become a major hurricane sometime in the Gulf of Mexico. That's at least a category three. Whether or not it would be stronger than category three, we're not sure yet.

But any hurricane that gets into the Gulf of Mexico with apparently favorable for strengthening conditions in the atmosphere and the ocean, everyone needs to watch very carefully. I know we're all weary from this season, but you have another storm to deal with.

O'BRIEN: In New Orleans, given the compromised levees, it won't take much of a hurricane to cause a big problem. As a matter of fact, just a lot of rainfall would cause a big problem. Do you have any sense right now of what the rainfall projections might be for New Orleans?

KNABB: It's really too early to say, because rainfall is highly dependent upon the track of the storm, and we're confident it's going to get into the Gulf of Mexico within the next couple of days here, but once we get to Friday, when we think it will eventually make landfall somewhere on the Gulf Coast, it could completely miss New Orleans and not produce any rainfall there.

However, it could also turn to the north over the Gulf and impact them more directly. So it's very too early to say. But certainly any area that's already been impacted by a hurricane or a storm earlier in the year is a little more susceptible to more damage if it gets struck again, but we're not sure that's going to occur for New Orleans. People in Texas could very well receive the brunt of this one.

O'BRIEN: What's the word this morning to people who might be watching this in Key West? Should they leave right now?

KNABB: We hope that everyone who was instructed to leave the Florida Keys has already left, because the conditions are going downhill rapidly. So it's really starting to become a time where you need to hunker down where you are, because the bands are coming in. The tropical storm force winds are already starting, and it's going to only get worse as the morning goes on.

O'BRIEN: Richard Knabb with the National Hurricane Center, thank you very much. We'll be back in touch.

Stay with CNN for complete coverage of Rita's path. CNN is your hurricane headquarters.

Still to come on the program, we're "Minding Your Business," Tropical Storm Rita giving oil prices a shot in the arm. We'll tell you how high they are now.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Tropical Storm Rita has oil prices surging. Sorry to tell you that. Yesterday we were talking about oil prices going down. What happened?

Andy Serwer is here with the roller coaster ride that is oil prices, yes.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Rita came.

It's sort of like Groundhog Day around here. Remember that movie? Bill Murray wakes up, and everyday it's the same thing over and over, these hurricanes and tropical storms rolling in and wreaking havoc on the Gulf and oil prices as well. Big oil companies like Chevron, BP and Shell already beginning to evacuate their oil platforms and rigs in the Gulf. BP in the eastern Gulf has evacuated 1,500 people. Marathon, another oil company, evacuating 40 people who are repairing rigs that were damaged from Katrina.

Fifty-six percent of the rigs in the Gulf are still out. And yesterday, Miles, the price of oil spiked bigtime in anticipation of this storm. You can see we went down after Katrina there on the screen, and now we're going back up. That's a $4 jump right there yesterday at the end of that graph to 67 and change, easing up a little bit today. This is gas prices, which lag oil prices, have dropped. National average about $2.78 a gallon. That is sure to rye as we get later into the week.

So you know, we just keep seeing this back and forth, and I think we were rooting for the end of hurricane season yesterday, and we're still rooting for the end of hurricane season today, aren't we?

O'BRIEN: Yes we are. I think that is something we can all agree on, end of November.

SERWER: That's right, end of November.

O'BRIEN: Andy Serwer, thank you very much.

Still to come on the program, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin will join us. Tropical Storm Rita has put his repopulation plan on hold, but was it a mistake to bring people back in the first place? That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. In a moment, we will talk with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin about plans to once again get residents out of New Orleans, as Tropical Storm Rita threatens Florida, and then likely the Gulf Coast.

Carol Costello is in New Orleans this morning.

Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning, miles. I'm telling you people are so confused about what should they do. Should they stay? Should they go? The mayor says, you know, if Rita gets to be really serious, people in Algiers, on the west side of the Mississippi River, should leave by Wednesday. The problem is, a lot of people have just run out of money. They just came back. They spent a lot of money at the hotel they were staying in, and most of them say they're just going to ride out the storm because they have no choice.

As for the people inside the city of New Orleans on the east side of the river, well, that's a little more dicey, because the levees are still in a weakened state, and even you get a category-one storm could break the levees once again. And they may have to got out sooner.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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