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Rita Upgraded to Hurricane, Heading Towards Florida Keys; General Honore Speaks Out

Aired September 20, 2005 - 09:30   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: On a sunny day, Haulover Beach is a clothing optional beach. Today, wear your slicker. It's just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up, a check on Hurricane Rita, upgraded to a Category 1 storm just moments ago. We are live in Key Largo.
But first, Carol Costello joining us from New Orleans. Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Miles. And I've got to tell you, it's making me even more nervous that Rita has now been ungraded to a hurricane. Many people very concerned about that, even though it seems to be missing the Louisiana Coast right now. But still, all eyes remain on Hurricane Rita.

COSTELLO: It will still be several hours, then, before Rita makes landfall in the Florida Keys, but they're already getting ready in Key Largo. And that's where Dan Lothian is right now. Good morning, Dan.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT; Good morning, Carol. Indeed, they are getting ready here in Key Largo. They were expecting, according to the weather experts, they had said that it possibly could be a Category 2 coming through this area, now a Category 1. As we've been talking about all morning long, anything can certainly happen. But certainly, at least at this point, people are feeling a little more relief, knowing that it hasn't at least accelerated to Category 2.

Nonetheless, mandatory evacuation across the Keys and voluntary evacuations in Miami-Dade and into Broward counties. What we have been seeing here throughout the morning are these sporadic showers and also wind gusts. About 30 minutes or so ago we had a heavy downpour, but then it cleared up. During that period of time, we did have some power interruption, but all the power is back on at this point.

The big concern, of course, is the surge, expected anywhere from six to nine feet. And also there is expected to be some localized flooding. Rain expected to be between five to as high as 15 inches falling on this region. So there's some concern about flooding. There are shelters towards the Miami-Dade area, but all the shelters throughout the Keys have been closed for now.

That's the very latest from Key Largo. Now back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks. Dan Lothian reporting live from Key Largo, Florida, this morning. Stay with CNN for complete coverage of Rita's path. CNN, your hurricane headquarters.

There is other news of the day, so let's check in again with Kelly Wallace. Good morning, Kelly.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again to you, Carol, and hello everyone. These stories "Now in the News."

President Bush is getting ready to leave for the Gulf Coast region at this hour. He is expected to make stops in Gulfport, Mississippi, and will also survey clean-up efforts in New Orleans. This will be the fifth time the president is traveling to the area since Katrina hit last month.

Turning overseas now to Iraq, where eight Americans have been killed in separate incidents. The U.S. military confirms four soldiers were killed Monday, bringing the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq to more than 1,900. The roadside bombings took place in Ramadi.

And in another incident in Mosul, a U.S. state department employee and three other Americans died in a suicide car bombing. Two others were hurt in that attack.

Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down hundreds of Nazi war criminals after World War II, has died. Wiesenthal has been called the conscience of the Holocaust. He spent decades of his life fighting antisemitism and prejudice. Simon Wiesenthal died early this morning in Vienna, Austria. He was 96 years old.

And in entertainment news, Oprah Winfrey getting a televised apology from Hermes. The head of the United States division of that company appeared Monday on "The Oprah Show." He apologized for Oprah's embarrassment last month, when she was barred from coming into a shop in Paris. Oprah ended the dispute, hugging the president and telling the viewers to shop, shop, shop. But she also, we should add, pledging $10 million for the Katrina relief fund.

O'BRIEN: Wow. That's an impressive donation.

WALLACE: It is.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Kelly.

WALLACE: Sure.

O'BRIEN: As we have been saying all morning, Rita now upgraded to a hurricane, Category 1, but still a hurricane. It's making its way into the Florida Keys as we speak. Thousands of people fled the Keys in advance of Rita, but in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, are people taking evacuation warnings more seriously, perhaps? We hope so.

Craig Fugate is the Florida director for emergency management. He joins us from Tallahassee. Mr. Fugate, good to have you with us. I'll pose that question to you. Do you have a sense that Katrina has changed the dynamic on the ground? Are people paying more attention?

CRAIG FUGATE, FLA. DIR. OF EMERGENCY MGMT: Well, I think even last year after our hurricanes in Florida, we saw a much better response when Hurricane Dennis went into the panhandle. So, yes, we are getting a better response. But, again, we still have people that there staying behind, so our search and rescue teams are ready to go, if needed.

O'BRIEN: What about those people staying behind? What do you -- I mean, at this point, you don't want them to leave, I know. Was it because they couldn't get transportation or was it because they just are stubborn and wanted to stay?

FUGATE: In the Keys, a lot of people are stubborn. We did work with the county yesterday, using their schoolbuses to get people out that wanted to get out, didn't have transportation. But again, some people will make those decisions. We advise against it, but they will stay.

O'BRIEN: What lessons have you learned from Katrina? I mean, you know, in the case of Florida, you have so much experience with these storms you can probably give your own courses. But nevertheless, I assume you've looked at the response and tried to draw some lessons and maybe learn something that could be used and useful in the future in Florida.

FUGATE: Well, I think what we learned was that it validated a lot of things we do in Florida, and one of which is the primary role of our local officials and our state and the importance of having good plans. But also exercising those plans as we do. So our lessons we've learned is, you've got to be ready, you've got to go. And the lessons of Katrina means this is a total partnership of our local, state and federal response.

O'BRIEN: Well, a lot of criticism on the federal level. In particular, FEMA taking a lot of the brunt of this. Is it incumbent upon the local and state officials to step into that void where FEMA doesn't do its job?

FUGATE: Well, you know, there's a lot of debate about this. Let's just put it this way. We went through four hurricanes last year, two this year with FEMA. We've had very successful responses with FEMA. But we are a full partnership with FEMA. Our expectations are they come in to support us, not to supplant our response.

O'BRIEN: You know, you still have people in temporary housing from actually a couple seasons ago. This is such a long haul. And I'm not sure people outside the hurricane zone fully appreciate how much this disrupts people's lives for so long.

FUGATE: Yes, we still have 7,500 families in temporary housing. And again, it takes years to recover from these hurricanes. So the areas that have just been ravaged by this storm -- again, this will not be anything that will be quickly repaired. But we work together, we get our communities back, get our businesses back, and we will survive. O'BRIEN: You know, this season, after what you went through last year, you have to be awfully weary and tired of this. Do you ask yourself what's going on? Are you concerned about climate change? Do you get into those kinds of issues?

FUGATE: No, I'm pretty sure what's going on is the Atlantic's warmer. We've seen this historically. Back in the '30s, we saw activity like this in Florida. And unfortunately as our population has grown, we forgot the lessons that history taught us all the way back in the '20s and '30s, with very devastating hurricanes in Florida.

So to me, this is just part of our natural environment. It's something we're going to have to get through. And fortunately these seasons do come and go, and so as we go through these hurricane seasons, we just have to deal with the fact that Mother Nature is more powerful than many people realize.

O'BRIEN: It's a tough patch.

Greg Fugate, thank you for your time. Good luck in Florida.

FUGATE: Thanks, sir.

O'BRIEN: Back to Carol in New Orleans.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Miles.

You've seen him take charge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with a no-nonsense approach. Lieutenant General Russel Honore recently spoke with Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, and he candidly shared his views about the challenges of the relief effort.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: (voice-over): As evening falls at his Mississippi headquarters, the general who leads the military relief effort sat down with CNN to finally pause and reflect. He believes everyone must understand what can and cannot be fixed in disaster relief, and why so many wound up trapped on the streets of New Orleans.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, CMDR., KATRINA JOINT TASK FORCE: Tragedies have they own multiplying impact on the poor. If you have a snowstorm or an ice storm, it hits the poor a little harder. If there's a plague in the community, if it's hot, in this case if you have flooding.

That being said, I think there will be a lot of soul searching as to look at how we would look at in the future.

These neighborhoods and these poor people, and my heart go out for them, who endured this most challenging times just to stay alive, ought to be commended. I saw many of them taking care of those less fortunate, comforting each other. In the future, I think there will be, based on this experience, people will find ways and means, because just to have a plan, just to give an order -- there's an old saying in the military, don't ever give an order you can't enforce. Thereby you have to go from plan to execution, because talking about it isn't equal to doing it, because you can fake your way out of a battle. You can do a feint. You can do a ruse. You can cause the enemy to do other things. But at the end of the night, you have to have water, you have to have ammunition, you have to have fuel, you have to have a way to move the troops.

This is very similar to a humanitarian operation. You can have a great plan, but you've got to move it. You have to get it where you need it. This is hard.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr is live at the Pentagon.

And, Barbara, I just want to say, the people under his command and the other U.S. military forces here, people love them. And they don't just guard the streets. I've seen troops sweeping the streets, helping people unload their U-Haul vans that were coming back. They perform all sorts of services. I mean, they're really, like, reaching out and putting their arms around people, as well as carrying their big guns and guarding the streets.

STARR: You know, Carol, that is the tone that General Honore set from day one, and what he is insistent, of course, is a humanitarian relief operation.

But for him now, today, that period of reflection is over. We've talked to his staff early this morning. He is making a number of military preparation now for Hurricane Rita.

What we can tell you is that things are about to change very rapidly, possibly, based on the current storm track. Now in New Orleans, the amphibious warship Iwo Jima that General Honore has used as a floating command center in New Orleans, well, the Iwo Jima and Shreveport, two amphibious ships in New Orleans, they now have orders to get underway tomorrow. If the current storm track sticks, they will leave New Orleans tomorrow. They will go to a safer area. Other ships are getting under way. And the military also now looking for safe havens to shelter those thousands of National Guard and active duty forces out of the way of Hurricane Rita if, indeed, it hits New Orleans -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That could be tough, Barbara, because a lot of them are sleeping in tents. They have big areas set up where there are tents, and they're just hanging out there. So it will be interesting to see what happens in the days to come.

Barbara Starr, live at the Pentagon this morning.

Still to come, a key cog of the New Orleans economy was up and running sooner than expected after Katrina, but will Rita knock the city's port off line again? That story, too, on AMERICAN MORNING. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The port of New Orleans vital to the city's economy, and recovery is quickly becoming shipshape, but there are significant obstacles.

Gary Lagrange is the CEO and president of the port of New Orleans. Let's let that military helicopter fly by.

GARY LAGRANGE, THE PORT OF NEW ORLEANS: I couldn't hear what you said.

COSTELLO: I know. I hope our viewers can hear me. This is Gary Lagrange, president of the Port of New Orleans. Welcome.

LAGRANGE: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr just reported that the Iowa Jima and other military ship ready to pull out tomorrow. I know that you're living on a ship yourself, and a lot of your dock workers are living on ships. What will happen to them in case Hurricane Rita becomes a real threat?

LAGRANGE: Well, of course, first and foremost, we're hoping it doesn't become a real threat. If it does, then it's a ready- deployment atmosphere, and that's what the maritime administration and the military vessels are.

So pretty much everybody has got to be ready to either go with the ship or be deployed somewhere else in a matter of minutes.

COSTELLO: So they've made your decision. When will you make yours?

LAGRANGE: As soon as they tell me the ship's leaving, I've got maybe 30 minutes to make a decision, and that's pretty much the case with everybody.

COSTELLO: Thirty minutes, that's it.

This has to be disappointing to you because you're making so much progress.

LAGRANGE: It is. It is. It's a step backward but, you know, we're going ahead with our gameplan right now based on two models for Rita out in the Gulf, and we think that -- we're hoping that we're going to be OK. We don't wish anything bad or anything ill certainly on anybody else. And our best-case scenario is that it hits some land where it's totally isolated and nobody lives within hundreds of miles, but maybe that's a fairy tale, yes.

COSTELLO: Wouldn't that be fantastic? That would be fantastic.

LAGRANGE: "Alice in Wonderland."

COSTELLO: Let's talk about projections for fixing up the Port of New Orleans. It was once considered the fifth busiest port of the United States.

LAGRANGE: Yes.

COSTELLO: Your projection a month from now is to get it 30 percent up and running. Will you still be able to do that now with the threat of Rita?

LAGRANGE: Yes, and again, it depends on what happens with Rita, what the projections hold. We realistically think we can be at 30 percent. In fact, we think that based on cargo projected for the next several days, sans Rita, that we probably will be at 25 to 30 percent now, even two weeks later.

We have 100,000 tons of steel coming in from Japan as we speak. It's en route now. We have a cargo ship, Mediterranean ship, the largest one that we serve, that's due in Thursday. All of this depends on what happens with Rita. So with a little luck, we'll still get all those ships in, 13 before October 1st. With a little luck.

COSTELLO: Well, with a lot of luck. You have all the dock workers. They came back to do really tough work. And now Rita is threatening. What are they saying about, you know, Mayor Nagin saying, maybe you better evacuate now?

LAGRANGE: Well, you know, I think the mayor -- to his credit, the mayor used good judgment. And maybe Rita helped out a little bit, who knows. But be that as it may, the decision was rendered for people to stay out a while longer. Without a Rita again, the dock workers are essential.

Three things are essential to operate a port that's fourth or fifth largest or first in the United States. You need electrical power, which we're getting back piecemeal. You need manpower and you need intermodal transportation power.

Of the three intermodal transportation carriers, barge, truck and rail, we do not have rail. Truck is not coming back as quickly as I'd hoped. That's going to be a problem we really need to work on in the next several days, without Rita. And then, hopefully, that will allow us to escalate, to move that cargo off the docks on to market to the distribution facilities and ultimately, to consumer in the Midwest and Northeast.

COSTELLO: Oh, so, well, as far as the electricity goes, I-10 was packed with electrical workers. I mean, it was truck after truck after truck. So they're coming in...

LAGRANGE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Exactly. Thank you to me, too. And thank you for joining this morning.

LAGRANGE: Thank you very much, Carol.

COSTELLO: We appreciate it.

LAGRANGE: Our pleasure.

COSTELLO: Nice to meet you.

LAGRANGE: Bye-bye.

COSTELLO: Back to you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Carol.

Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, the Fed is set to make a big announcement on interest rates. Andy has a preview in "Minding Your Business." And, of course, we're watching Hurricane Rita. Live pictures. Haulover Beach, right around the Miami area as the winds blow and the surf rises. Stay with CNN, your hurricane headquarters and stay with AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, when Alan Greenspan speaks, Andy Serwer listens. And oil prices, which have become his stock and trade, anyway. Good to have you back.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" COLUMNIST: Pun intended, we pay very careful attention to all these things here at CNN.

Let's talk about the markets. First of all, Miles, stocks up 30 here. At least the Dow Jones Industrials are. That after a retreat yesterday. And it's all about oil. The price of a barrel is down 76 cents to 66/63. Remember, the record high was 70/85. You can see that peak there. And, of course, this has everything to do with first Katrina and now Rita, as we're watching implications of that big storm.

The other big story in the business world today, though, is Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. At 2:15 today, we will learn whether or not the Fed will raise interest rates for the 11th time since June of 2004. The anticipation is they will raise the Fed funds rate from 3.5 percent to 3.75.

Now, this is a very momentous occasion here in Federal Reserve land, because the thinking before Katrina was that certainly Alan Greenspan would raise rates. After Katrina, the thinking was, perhaps he will not because Katrina will be the throwing the economy for a loop, possibly even sending us into a recession or something like that.

But it became clear days after the storm that, in fact, Katrina could be inflationary. The price of oil was going up, the price of lumber was up, the price of steel and copper up because of shortages and supply concerns. So now the thinking is that he will raise rates. But it's very important to look at that statement that he releases, the effects of Katrina and is he winding down the rate-raising program?

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

SERWER: You are welcome.

O'BRIEN: Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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