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Hurricane Rita has Continued High Wind and Rain; Assessments of Storm Damage Beginning Already; Flooding and Damage Remain Major Concerns

Aired September 24, 2005 - 10:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien live in Lumberton, Texas. Rita's winds are still blowing. The rain is still coming down. And even as it happens the assessment begins on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien, live in Lumberton, Texas. Take a look at this. This is some of the remnants of Hurricane Rita. This was a storage facility behind the police station in Lumberton where three or four dogs were kept because their owners couldn't take them as they evacuated. We just found one of the dog in there. He's doing just fine over there.

Take a look at this, though. Numerous trees downed along here in this area, pine trees which were just snapped in half like match sticks. Then one of the main antennas here for the police communication system bent over in this 120 mile-an-hour wind as it came through. Lots of debris. Lots of evidence of flooding all throughout this parking lot here.

As the wind continues to whip, Rita making her way inland, but unfortunately the prognostication is that Rita will begin to stall and that is not a good situation because this rain that had brought down all night long was absolutely relentless. This storm was an incredible rain generator.

So there will be a story of flooding which we'll be telling for several days to come. And we still really don't know yet, Soledad, the situation on what happened in really the more prone side of this storm, east of the eye, in Lake Charles. That remains to be seen. So the story really unfolds before our very eyes in daybreak here -- Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Yes, sort of cautiously optimistic I think are the words to be using this morning. Thanks, Miles.

I want to give you the very latest on Rita. In fact, some of the worst damage we've seen this morning is in Port Arthur, Texas. CNN's John King is there. He said he saw several feet of flood water in some streets. And in that same area, officials in Jefferson and Orange Counties and the City of Beaumont are telling evacuees don't come home just yet. They want to make sure that those areas are safe.

Reports are still sketchy in western Louisiana which was hit by the more damaging side of the storm. Winds reportedly ripped the roofs off some home, knocked down walls too . And then in New Orleans we're waiting for a definitive word on the state of the levees after the outer bands of Rita passed by. General Russel Honore and his team is just starting to assess the damage to that city this morning.

Let's get right to Randi Kaye who is in Baytown this morning. We heard good news, Randi, oil refineries and also the chemical plants -- you know what ...

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... here in Baytown. It may be hard to tell from the way I'm blowing around out here right now but believe it or not I think that we are actually through the worst of it here in Baytown. We saw winds up to about 85 miles an hour here. It was some pretty rough conditions.

I want to show you some of the damage now that it's daylight. If you take a look over in that area you can take a look at the drain pipe there on the side of the building. That's the Best Western that's next to us. Also their awning has gone down overnight.

And if we show you the flagpoles over here there were three flags up there as of last night and one by one they flew away. The American flag, the Comfort Inn hotel flag. All that's left there is the Texas flag, which is interesting.

Also over here are the palm trees that we were talking about all night, one of them did end up cracking there on the end. They were just planted in January when this hotel opened and now that one is gone.

But the good news here that I can report is that I've been checking in with the folks who have been monitoring the Houston ship channel, which is where the chemical plants are and all the refineries, and I am told by the group that monitors that that was looking a the plants all night, they said that there has been no damage there as far as they can tell, no chemical leaks no fires that they had to respond to.

So that's very good news because these plants had shut down -- had shut down. It took them 24 hours to close their doors and could take them a week to get back up and running.

But I did just get new information from the city manager here in Baytown. He said their water treatment facility caught fire overnight and that treats the water, purifies the water for the entire town of Baytown, 66,000 people.

It actually serves 86,000 people. Caught fire overnight, it's completely out of use right now so they want everybody in Baytown and the areas surrounding Baytown to stay away from the water and try and conserve as much water as possible. They're trying to see what they can do in terms of fixing that as quickly as possible. But they don't think that's going to be possible today.

So again, their water treatment facility lost power and caught fire overnight. And they'll see what they can do about trying to fix that. That is if latest from here in Baytown. Back to you. S. O'BRIEN: Randi Kaye reporting for us. Obviously, a big wind storm going on. She's still struggling with that this morning. Thanks, Randi. Let's get right back to Miles in Lumberton. Miles, we can see behind you. It looks like the water going down a bit.

M. O'BRIEN: It is going down a little bit, Soledad, and I should point out this is Main Street in Lumberton. And it's actually pretty clear. I looked in both directions, left and right. I don't see any trees down.

And slowly but surely we're starting to see cars coming back. I've got to point out the authorities are not advising evacuees to return here just yet until they go through the neighborhoods, figure out where the power lines are down, where the trees are down.

As a matter of fact, they're in the midst of trying to get to some people right now. There's an elderly man who needs oxygen. He decided he wanted to ride out the storm in his home, running low on oxygen. They're trying to get to him but they have problems because of the trees that are down.

There was another group of people trapped in a house with a tree down. Couldn't get to them. They finally just got resourceful and climbed out a window and made their way to a neighbor's house. So there's a series of people who decided to ride out the storm who frankly are taking up a lot of time with the authorities here this morning as they try to get them safe because in many cases, in many cases those trees cause problems for them.

Fifteen miles to the south of me, Beaumont, Texas, there was a lot of concern that as Rita came ashore, there would be a big hit there. But what a difference being on the west versus the east side of an eye can make.

Beaumont was on the west side of the eye. And as a result, the damage this morning does not appear to be too extensive. That's first blush on it anyhow.

Let's take a look and check in with Rob Marciano who spent the night in Beaumont watching that storm. And, Rob, you were at that Entergy building there which was -- I guess there were windows blowing out of the building. That must have been pretty scary.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I tell you, that building -- you saw it when you drove in here. It's probably the sturdiest building in town. It's about 10, 12 stories but it's just solid, you know, concrete. It does have windows and they're supposed to be storm proof up to 150 miles an hour wind and sure enough, the windows started blowing out there.

But that was the shelter that housed emergency workers, fire and rescue crews, utility crews that are all being dispatched this morning, the command center for the mayor and just the emergency command center. So hat's where all the important people are and the people that are going to do the dirty work today to get this place cleaned up and out of here. But it was, you know, you would say it was a long night, but was a long, scary night. I tell you that, with winds easily gusting to near 100 miles an hour there. It was unbelievable to witness. And then the windows coming out, that was no fun, either.

All right. What happened on ground when all that was happening? Well, obviously, we've got trees that have been damaged. These are huge -- this is not even a mature oak tree. These big, beautiful southern oak trees. This one just snapped at the v. You can see another big branch of it coming down here. This one slammed into a light pole.

And you can imagine that this is happening all around town. These trees are all around the southern part of the Gulf coast of Mexico. So lamp posts, telephone wires, of course, power lines are down. So that's going to be a big problem. By the way, power -- it didn't go out until like midnight last night. Very impressive.

Also impressive, the Neches River here. We were thinking if the storm did come to us on the dirty side, if we got that eastern push, this might come up 20 feet. I stand right now at about 13 feet above sea level. So we were fearing that this would come up right over our heads. Because it went east of Sabine Pass, we were on the other side, winds were blowing away from the river. So it didn't come up that high. That's obviously good news.

What are those emergency managers doing right now? What do they do to prepare for maybe a 20-foot storm surge? Where do they put all those trucks, all that heavy machinery? It's down river. You can't see it, but it's down river towards the port there where they've got a couple of Navy cargo vessel -- huge ones, huge Navy cargo vessels -- that are loaded up with utility crew trucks, with fire trucks, with other emergency management trucks and other heavy machinery to help clean this place up. So a lot of planning went in.

Yes, Miles, we didn't necessarily -- we weren't on the extreme bad part of the storm but you rode it out last night. It was downright nasty. The feeling of a major hurricane, we have major hurricane type of damage in the way of tree damage and structural damage as well.

There's lots of tree -- lots of roof damage and we've got a crew out right now, Miles, and we'll hope to get a report back in the hour and maybe some fresh video to see what it looks like around the rest of town. Frankly, I haven't been -- I just had to bob and weave my way over. I haven't seen the rest of town, but we'll hope to get some of those pictures to later on -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Positively relentless storm, Rob. You've covered a lot of these storms. Could you remember one where the rain was sustained as consistently as this one?

MARCIANO: No, and it started yesterday probably around 3:00, 4:00. It was a steady rain from 3:00, 4:00, a steady wind and it just kept coming and increasing and increasing and just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, that's when the eyewall came on shore and that's when it felt like all heck was breaking loose. It was unbelievable and a bit scary to witness. That's for sure -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, I got to ask you -- I got to ask you a question because I've been very curious about what they did with their emergency vehicles there, putting them on the vessels. As I'm told they actually added ballasts to the vessels to make them lower so they'd be able to ride out the storm better. Why don't they just drive them to higher ground? Wouldn't that have been easier?

MARCIANO: You know, I think they feared that when this thing was a Cat 4 and Cat 5 that we would have tornado-like winds 150, 200 miles inland and having to drive that machinery around downed trees, downed poles, downed power lines would have taken much longer than having to load up that -- maybe -- I don't know. That would make sense to me. But I'm just speculating, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: No, no, that does. That does make sense. I was trying to figure it out. That makes as much sense as anything. You want to have your equipment as close as it can be to where it will be needed. And today they're going to need that heavy equipment. All right. Rob Marciano, thank you very much. Let's go back to Soledad in New York -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles. Thanks a lot. Port Sam Houston in San Antonio is where military men and women are standing by ready to deploy whenever it's clear where the help is exactly needed. Jamie McIntyre is there at the center of military operations, and FEMA is launching from there, too. Good morning, Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. As you said, this is not just the headquarters of Joint Task Force Rita which is the military support and state and local officials. It's also the staging area for FEMA. These big trucks you see behind me are loaded with 800,000 liters of water, 1.8 pounds of ice, 400,000 MREs, 21,000 tarps, 50 generators.

All of these are poised to be sent to forward staging areas to get relief to people. In fact, 40 of these 130 something trucks already left last night. They're already going to the areas. These trucks are waiting for their orders.

But that's just a little bit of what's going on here at Fort Sam Houston. The commanding general, Robert Clark (ph), has been in videoconferences all morning. He's going to be taking an aerial tour to survey the damage later. There's more than 180 helicopters standing by if they're needed.

Troops from the Army's 3rd Corps, the 18th Airborne are standing by if they need to deploy active duty troops, if they need -- right now the main thing is to figure out what the needs are and the first step is to send special Joint Task Force Rita assessment teams into the field.

So this is the headquarters for the response. Basically in Texas and parts of Louisiana, General Honore, his counterpart at Camp Shelby in Mississippi coordinating the part in mostly in Louisiana. But again, President Bush will be coming here later to meet with the general to talk about the relief effort.

And one thing that you really sense -- and we spent the day yesterday with General Clark -- is the real commitment to try to learn the lessons of Katrina, try to get things right. And, of course, they seem to be dealing with a much less significant storm but nevertheless, they know they had challenges in making sure they get aid to people.

And, Soledad, we've been with General Clark now for about a day. We're going to try to bring him out here as soon as he has some time and get first-hand information about what is going on with the relief effort and the rescue effort, and we'll try to bring that to you a little later today -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Hey, Jamie, have they given you any sense of when they would mobilize people? I mean, I know it's early on and people are just really doing the assessments, haven't really gotten into what are perceived to be the hardest hit areas. Any idea when the truck would start rolling?

MCINTYRE: Well, these people are mobilized. These trucks are ready to go. They just need to know exactly where to go. Some of them already headed off to Houston, just figuring that they would be closer to where they were needed at that point.

You know, obviously you don't want to send things in until you have a place for it to go. You don't want to send people willy-nilly. But they've got a plan. They are hoping it's going to be up to the challenge and already thousands of people are mobilized. They just need to make an assessment of where that help needs to go and see how fast they can get it there.

S. O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre is at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio this morning. Thanks, Jamie, we'll check in with you again.

We have some new pictures coming into us. You can see President Bush there being briefed. He's in Colorado Springs, being briefed on the situation on the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, exactly the damage that they know of at this point and also the other issues with the storm.

We're going to continue to follow the story obviously throughout this morning on a special Saturday edition of AMERICAN MORNING. stay with us. A short break. We're back if in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. CNN, your hurricane headquarters in the wake of Hurricane Rita, all eyes on New Orleans to see how the levees fared as they were repairing from the damage from Hurricane Katrina. Mary Snow is right at the 17th Street Canal, joins us with an update on what is happening there. Good morning, Mary.

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad. And the update we're getting here at the 17th Street Canal so far is so good in terms of engineers are saying that they haven't seen any seepage. Why? and I'll show you why.

We're going to pan over to the steel pilings. This is what engineers have been putting up in the past couple days. This is about a quarter mile away from the breach in the levee. Engineers are saying that water here is about five feet above sea level.

They say with those steel pilings, that they could probably handle water being 10 to 12 feet above sea level. Now, the real level concern of the Army Corps of Engineers is the Industrial Canal levee. We saw that yesterday overtopped in two sections of that damaged levee, damaged of course in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The Army Corps of Engineers saying that they have crews trying to get in there, one by helicopter and of course they have to wait until the winds die down in order for them to go up and place those 3,000- pound sandbags that is, to try to shore up those reinforcements. Also they're going to have ground crews going in to try to reinforce those breached areas.

As you can probably tell, it is not raining here right now, which is a good sign for those engineers to get in. They also report some seepage at the London Street Canal levee. They say that had been anticipated.

But, of course, that area of concern is the Ninth Ward which we saw water pouring into yesterday that continued overnight. And what the engineers is saying is that once they can start getting in there to reinforce the level where water overtopped the breach, that they'll be able to start pumping that water out.

This, of course, disappointing news to the engineers who have been working for weeks on this. I talked to one this morning who said, you know, so many of the engineers here also personally lost their own property, and they've been working. This is very disheartening for them to see all that work just absolutely reversed -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, Mary, that's certainly a story that we hear a lot. While they're dealing with their own personal damage to their homes, they're also kind of stay on the job and really repair the city of New Orleans. Mary, thanks.

In fact, we're going to get right to Dan Hitchings. He's a senior civilian working on levee repairs with the Army Corps of Engineers, and he's in Baton Rouge this morning. It's nice to see you.

You heard Mary kind of give us a status report of how things looked to her this morning. What information are you getting about the structural integrity of the various levees that we were concerned about, especially the ones that had previously failed or were seeping or being overtopped?

DAN HITCHINGS, ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Well, thanks, Soledad. Actually, Mary gave a really great update on what's going on on the ground there. We've -- the conditions have stabilized overnight. The water level is dropping a little bit in the Industrial Canal and as soon as -- as Mary said, as soon as the winds die down, we can get a helicopter in there and start dropping sandbags and stopping the overflow into that area.

The good news part of this is that the pumps are running this time as opposed to immediately after Katrina. And they are keeping the water levels from increasing beyond where they are. And as soon as we can stop the inflow, we'll be able to get that water out of there in a relatively short period of time.

Now, that's true for both, you know, the Ninth Ward area, as well as the areas within Orleans Parish that are in the 17th Street Canal and London Ave. (ph) Canal. Both of those have held up as well as we could expected, and as Mary pointed out, the sheet piled closures at the bridge really have been all the difference there to make sure that the water didn't overflow some of the breached areas there.

S. O'BRIEN: How quickly do you think you're going to be able to get a chopper up in the air to survey the damage, and how quickly do you think, in fact, that you're going to be able to start the dewatering. You know, you stop the leaking, start the seepage and start dewatering?

HITCHINGS: Well, the dewatering's continuing right now as we're pumping. But I'm going to put a lot of pressure on Duane Gapinsky there in New Orleans, because I'm back here in Baton Rouge, but, you know, I'm expecting that we'll be able to start helicopter operations within an hour or so, and we should be able to get sandbags in place today to stop most of the seepage through that breach. It'll -- they've continued work over the next couple of days to truly stop everything from coming through, but today should make a huge difference.

S. O'BRIEN: The mayor called this a -- really a worst nightmare scenario. Do you agree, or do you think to some degree it could've been a lot worse?

HITCHINGS: Well, it always can be worse. It certainly could've been a lot better. We did not expect it to reach the levels of surge in the Industrial Canal that we did. You know, it got pretty close to eight foot, which was, you know, right at the top of the levees that we had put in that place, so that's what caused that overtopping and ultimate scouring of that area. So -- but a 10 foot would've overtopped many more areas and would've been a lot worse, so we take what we get.

S. O'BRIEN: It kind of looks like the Lower Ninth Ward just cannot get a break. How does this complicate the search and rescue efforts that are going on there, you know, it's like two steps forward, two and a quarter steps back?

HITCHINGS: Yes, unfortunately, Soledad, back here in Baton Rouge, I can't really comment on that. I do believe the reports that I've seen is that most of the search and rescue efforts were completed in those areas.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, thanks for talking with us this morning. That's Dan Hitchings with the Army Corps of Engineers ...

HITCHINGS: My pleasure.

S. O'BRIEN: ... talking with us about exactly the situation there with the levees. Everybody has had their eye on New Orleans because of course, they are reeling from Hurricane Katrina and now walloped a little bit with Hurricane Rita.

A short break. When we come back in just a little bit, we're going to bring you the first live report out of Lake Charles. That's an area many people are concerned about, thinking that that may be, in fact, the hardest hit area in this hurricane. And update from there in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome come back to a special Saturday edition of AMERICAN MORNING as with continue our coverage of Hurricane Rita, still a Category 2 storm has passed through where I stand right now, Lumberton, Texas. We were on the west side of the eyewall and, thus, while we were battered here overnight, and with a steady, relentless, just firehose of rain, and there is flooding and trees down as a result, the real concern is for the east side.

You know about that counter clockwise flow of a hurricane and why that eastern side of the wall is a more dangerous place to be as water is pushed in like a bulldozer causing much more of a storm surge as well as higher winds because the wind is compounded by the speed of the storm itself.

CNN photographer Mark Biello made his way to a place we were worried about this morning and we haven't gotten much of an assessment yet. Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he has a first-person report on the phone here of how things look. Mark, tell us what you're seeing.

MARK BIELLO, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: Yes, Miles, we're currently now at the base of the I-10 bridge that crosses over the river here. The storm surges are pretty strong. A lot of waves are now currently coming up and over the railroad beds. We see a semi that was blown over and pinned at the top of this tressel bridge that crosses the river.

Many of the casinos have broken away from their moors here and are floating in the river area. There's also a stream of semi tractor trailers that were going to attempt to head westbound on I-10 and crossover into the west side but the winds are just too strong at this time for these vehicles to make it over the bridge.

Local law enforcement officials are just becoming visible now and they're out assessing the damage here by the bridge. We were currently driving in from Lafayette and I-10 west. I-10 is pretty much intact. There are some significant damage at Lake Arthur and another town of Jennings we saw a casino that was destroyed there. And one other note -- a lot of the cattle are still out in the pastures as if nothing's happening. So it's kind of a strange sight to see this damage and high winds, but the cattle are out grazing in the fields -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: It's amazing the incongruous things you see. I-10 from Lafayette to where you are was fine. There are reports of a bridge being out on I-10, but maybe that's to the west of where you are.

BIELLO: Yes, all of the way from Lafayette all of the way west to Lake Charles, the highway was intact. There are very, very strong cross winds. We saw some vehicles almost blown off the road. It's very dangerous to be on that road at that time because of how strong -- and these wind gusts just blow the vehicles sideways. You know, we took it slow and made our way this way. But it's very dangerous. The winds are the biggest danger here along with the water that is still rising here along the riverfront.

M. O'BRIEN: Mark, would you care to venture how extensive if flooding is there?

BIELLO: The flooding looks like it's not significant from the rain. It looks as if it's that storm surge again pushing this water and is holding it, which is rising the levels here around the boat launch and around the areas. Some of the casinos, parking lots are completely flooded at this time. I would say probably a couple feet of water.

So some of the vehicles we were able to adjust that (ph) by looking at these cars that were left in some of the parking lots. I think some of the biggest concern here with the high winds are these floating boat casino areas that are breaking away from the docks and the river and bouncing around in the water. Those are significant structures and can either smack into this bridge here across the river which is a giant steel girder trestle bridge or possibly go aground or down the river or up to river, depending on how the winds are blowing.

M. O'BRIEN: Mark Biello, we'll let you get back to work. Sorry about coughing in the middle of your report there. It's been a long night here. Alex Quade is with us now. She is in Lafayette, Louisiana, where Mark Biello began his journey. What can you tell us about what's going on there?

ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles, storm surge is really still the big problem here in Lafayette and this is even still as far as 30 to 40 miles from the Gulf. I'm next to the Vermilion River and it's flowing north. It usually flows south. This is really concerning residents. The winds here haven't died down at all. We are on the east side of the storm, the dirty side.

And periodically as we're getting these squall lines, these feeder bands that are still coming through here, you know, coming through here, it's virtually whiteout conditions. Anyone who has skied in a blizzard will know what that's like. You can't see anything. These squall lines, these feeder bands are coming through about every half hour or so.

But again, the big concern here is the storm surge that even 30, 40 miles from the coast, you know, we're getting rivers, the river are rising, the Vermilion River is not raining. It's flooding its banks. Boat launches, docks are under water and local radio reports are saying that the river has hit the 13 foot mark. I don't know what the usual level for the Vermilion River is but the locals are very concerned that it's flowing northward instead of southward. Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: Alex, are there levees and flood walls in Lafayette?

QUADE: You know, I don't know that. I can check that out for you and find out, but I'm looking at the river right now and seeing that it is rising. It has flooded parking lots. It is going over some of the roads. The launching and boat docks are underwater and, again, locals -- the local residents here are very concerned that they're seeing their river here flowing north and they are saying that the storm surge and because of the high winds that this isn't going to be letting down for hours.

M. O'BRIEN: Alex Quade in Lafayette, 30 miles inland and the concern there is storm surge. Once again, the eastern side of the eye wall is the place to really focus on this morning. We're on the western side here in Lumberton as well as Beaumont, which is where you're seeing some pictures now, fresh video coming into us right now.

What you see there is what we've been describing all along with our people there, Gary Tuchman there this morning, Rob Marciano there, describing a scene of street lights that are up-ended and while windows blown out of buildings, as a matter of fact, the building where we based our operations there, where the emergency operations center is, the Entergy building, tallest building in the town with windows that are supposedly able to withstand 150 miles an hour did not, in fact, withstand Rita. So nevertheless, the general assessment is that Beaumont did pretty well in light of all that has occurred.

CNN's John King is a little bit to the south of there, Port Arthur, right on the coast. There was a lot of concern about Port Arthur. As a matter of fact, the entire police department, fire department, city manager, mayor, are here in Lumberton. They will be making their way down and they might already be on their way, as a matter of fact. We're going to try to find that out.

They evacuated here so that their equipment and they can have a command center here on the high ground of Lumberton about 50 miles away. Meanwhile, in Port Arthur, John is there, came in there really in kind of the midst of this storm sometime after midnight, I think John and what you saw there was a fair amount of flooding. What's the situation there right now?

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, the fact that we can speak to you from where we are which is the banks of the Sabine Neches canal which leads out to Lake Sabine, the fact that we can speak to you here is very significant. There is very significant flooding in the center of town, most of it from the storm surge. The water brought in by the storm.

There's quite a bit of damage, roofs blown off houses, power lines down, store fronts ripped off of them, quite a bit of damage at this time, downed trees everywhere. Perhaps you can see some on this antebellum home over this shoulder here, downed trees everywhere. They have a very significant project ahead of them here in getting this town back on its feet and getting the flooding out of the center of town.

But the big fear as just yesterday a day or so, was that this would be overwhelmed. The storm would bring in so much water that this levee here would be overwhelmed and there would be the storm surge and then perhaps flooding to follow, like the devastation we saw in New Orleans. I can tell you we're standing here now and the waters are still high. It's choppy as it flows through.

But there is plenty of distance, six, maybe seven feet even between the top water level and the seawall here coming through and we see a similar situation as we look all of the way down. So quite a bit of destruction in town, significant, significant destruction, but certainly not the devastation that they feared could come here yesterday when, as you noted, the mayor and so many other city officials including the police and the fire department started to evacuate.

It took us quite a bit to get here because of the flooding in town. Most of the roads to get down here are actually impassable about because of downed power lines, because of downed trees and the water in some areas is as high as seven feet. More typically it's two to three feet. We are here in terms of a threat of additional flooding it appears to have passed.

The winds are about 45 miles an hour. It is still raining, significant recovery and reconstruction effort in the center of this town. I think when the officials do get here, they will say that it's tough here, it's bad here but they thought it was going to be a lot worse. Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: John, when last we heard from you, you had spoken to a citizen of Port Arthur who made the decision to ride it out. I had spoken to the police chief and the fire chief up here in Lumberton. They said we're afraid that everybody decides to stay there won't make it.

Well, clearly that is not what happened. But he did tell you, and I thought it was telling, he said, I don't know, I'm paraphrasing here, I don't know why I decided it was a good idea to ride this thing out. I would never do that again. Have you run into other people who tried to ride it out, feel the same way?

KING: Only a handful. Not that many people stayed. We drove pretty extensively through the town last night and of course people were hunkered down in their homes. But we saw absolutely no evidence of anybody here when we drove through last night. That gentleman you mentioned he said at 1:30 in the morning every window in his house blew out all at the same time and his house actually twisted a little bit on his foundation and moved. So he regrets that he stayed.

We saw one other gentleman we spoke to who lived a bit further out toward the extreme. I can tell you we stayed, our cars protected by a very narrow passageway, small concrete structures on either side and it was pretty dicey here on the height of the storm.

There was a lot of metal and wood flying by us, a dumpster turned over, a furniture delivery truck turned over. So those who did stay here, I can't say I regret it, but that gentleman said he lost all the windows in his house all at once. At the height of the storm, I was a pretty dicey proposition.

M. O'BRIEN: Dicey indeed, John King. It sounds like something you would see out of a movie, losing all the windows and the whole foundation moving there. And so you were there for the entire storm or did you come in kind of late?

KING: No, we came in here. We're actually down at Sabine (ph) pass just north of Sabine pass a mile or two. The eye of the storm was about 23 miles offshore and we turned around. It was way too risky to stay there. I assume that area is still under significant water. We turned around and came back here and we got back into Port Arthur.

We had taken a drive through the town to assess the roads to see whether there was any flooding and to find this levee to make sure we had several ways to come back to check on it later. And then we got back into town about 1:30 Eastern time and we drove around a little bit more to assess where the streets were, the early signs. It was raining pretty heavily, that the hurricane hadn't hit yet and then we found a nice safe place to hunker down.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. John King in Port Arthur, thank you very much. Just into us now, Rita is now a category one storm. Let's get the latest on the storm, where it is, where it's headed, what lies ahead as it continues its rain production, tremendous rain production. Jacqui Jeras in the weather center. Good morning Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning Miles. Our big focus is now shifting to the inland flooding concern. The winds are dying down pretty dramatically here. We're down to a category one hurricane. Winds are 75 miles per hour sustained. And that's even barely a hurricane. You've got to be 74 plus to be considered a hurricane at this time. Location, 31 north, 94.3 west. That's right near Jasper, Texas. So it's made its way about 80 to 100 miles inland already at this time.

We're still going to be some gusty winds. You can still get some fair amount of damage yet with the category one. Some large tree limbs can go down and that can cause more power outages. There you can see the center of the storm. I believe Jasper is somewhere right here in this neighborhood. There you can see Lufkin, Texas. That's (INAUDIBLE). They're also just getting pounded right now with some unbelievably heavy rain and also the strong gusty winds as tropical storm force winds still extend out about 200 miles from the center of the storm. There you can see our live radar updating. This is the inner wall. This is what used to be the eye or the eye wall of the hurricane and that is collapsing. But this is still a small area of concern. Our other trouble here is going to be the threat of tornadoes.

These outer feeder bands that begin to move in and they can -- each of these little mini super cells can potentially produce tornadoes at any time. So we're going to get a lot of warnings on and off throughout the day for today. And there is a watch also which is in effect. The other thing is that on shore flow continuing. Five to 10 foot storm surges still possible throughout much of the day today especially along the south eastern Louisiana coast. Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: Jacqui Jeras in the weather center, thank you very much. We just were talking to John King about Port Arthur and we're getting additional reports as I told you much of the emergency services, fire police, rescue, and the town fathers came here. In just a moment we'll talk to the battalion fire chief of Port Arthur and see what reports he's been getting from his city. That's after a short break on this special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.

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M. O'BRIEN: Back now live, city of Lumberton, Texas, where we weathered the storm and it was a relentless storm here. We are about 45, 50 miles inland, north of Port Arthur, Texas, which was a place a lot of people were concerned about as Rita bore down on this coast. I'm joined now by somebody who weathered the storm in this town as well.

As a matter of fact, the entire fire department, police department from Port Arthur. Gary Sule (ph), good to have you with us. He's the battalion chief for the Port Arthur fire department. You've gotten some direct reports back. What are you hearing right now about how Port Arthur faired? We just heard from John King who said there's a fair amount of flooding there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the best news that we have is there was not a storm surge. What we had expected and was reported that we might have a 20 to 28-foot storm surge and that did not occur.

M. O'BRIEN: So the flooding we're seeing is more associated with that driving rain?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We had a driving rain and we also had a lot of wind damage.

M. O'BRIEN: Have you had an assessment yet, made any sort of assessment on the wind damage and how extensive it might be?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a reconnaissance team down there now that's looking at the area to see if we can reoccupy. We've done massive evacuations of people from our area and then we evacuated. M. O'BRIEN: And it was a situation where there was some concern about the people you left behind, the people who would not be evacuated. At this point have you heard any word -- we didn't hear anything from our reporter John King about any sort of casualties down there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know about that as of yet. They have people down there that are checking on that. Police and fire are back into that area checking on that. And we believe that we evacuated as many people as we could. We went door to door and knocked on doors and went down streets with buses trying to get people to leave. We used school buses so that we could evacuate as many as possible.

M. O'BRIEN: When I was talking to the police chief he said, you know, I asked them to put their licenses in their socks so I could identify the bodies because that was the concern. It appears that it was a glancing blow and fortunately for Port Arthur, maybe not for Lake Charles, you know, on the side of the storm that, is well, more forgiving, put that it way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we did fare better than we had expected to. The storm surge not coming to our area was a real blessing.

M. O'BRIEN: Gary Sule, battalion chief for Port Arthur. Good luck as you continue to reconnaissance. Back to you Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Thanks. Let's get right to Colorado Springs where President Bush just a little while ago was receiving a briefing on the aftermath of hurricane Rita. Let's listen to a little bit of that briefing.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much for a series of briefings that really do comfort me in knowing that our Federal government is well organized and well prepared to deal with Rita. I've come here to watch NorthCom in action, to see firsthand the capacity of our military to plan, organize and move equipment, to help the people in the effected areas in this case of Louisiana and Texas.

We've had full briefings on the storm, its activities. The first order of business now is to search and rescue teams, to pull people out of harm's way. Just had an assessment by General Honore of Lake Charles, Louisiana. It got hit hard. They've got teams on the ground, beginning to analyze the situation and prepare the necessary response to stabilize the situation and more importantly, stabilize there as well.

It's very important for the citizens who have headed to east Texas to understand that even though the storm has passed the coastline, the situation is still dangerous because of potential flooding. A lot of people have left the coastline and headed into east Texas and parts of western Louisiana. It is important for them to listen carefully to the local authorities about whether or not it is safe to return back to their homes. It's going to take a while for the authorities on the ground to fully understand the impact of the flooding and, therefore, people who are safe now ought to remain in safe conditions. At any rate, Admiral, thank you very much for your hospitality. I appreciate your leadership. I want to thank all the folks who work here at NorthCom for doing their duty which is to organize and rally the assets of the Federal government to help our fellow citizens who are in need. Thank you very much.

S. O'BRIEN: In Colorado Springs, President Bush wrapping up some brief remarks after he gets a briefing and you're looking at pictures of that briefing along with the Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff being briefed in the aftermath of hurricane Rita. They're really waiting for daylight before they were able to assess just how badly hit some of these communities were.

It looks according to the president as if Lake Charles has been hit hard. He said he got that word from his man on the ground, General Honore. He said on term there are teams on the ground right now. They are analyzing the situation there and more importantly, they are working to stabilize the situation there. The first order of business, according to the president, to focus on search and rescue and to save lives if the situation, in fact, merits it.

We know certainly that Lake Charles is now looks like it is the hardest hit area in the wake of hurricane Rita. We've got crews on the way. We're going to have more information from Lake Charles for you this morning. Galveston, Texas. Take a look at these pictures in the wake of the hurricane hitting there. You can see just some of the damage.

Galveston really avoided a lot of damage. They were able to evacuate in excess of 90 percent of the people out of there, but in addition to that, they clearly did get some debris, some downed trees, downed power lines as well. But avoiding, Miles, what many had expected in the days before hurricane Rita hit, where there were some catastrophic predictions for Galveston and the area around it.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, there were, Soledad. And this morning in Galveston, I know they're breathing a sigh of relief just as the authorities are in Port Arthur. And as we say, it is probably something we shouldn't dwell on because the story of Lake Charles remains to be fully told. And we are working on that as well.

Another city breathing a sigh of relief is the city of Houston. Fourth largest city in the country and what we saw there over the past couple days was a remarkable scene of evacuation, often chaotic evacuation. Today the city is making an assessment of how much damage occurred in the wake of Rita. We're joined now by the mayor, Bill White, to get his sense of where things are. Mayor White, what are people telling you on the ground? How much damage did Houston sustain?

MAYOR BILL WHITE, HOUSTON: Well, I've been on the ground constantly through the night as well as hundreds that we've had fanned out there. Trees are down. Power's out in large portions of the city. Water is rising. So we're still not out of the woods. I'm pleased to report that because of the massive evacuation efforts in the areas greatest at risk, not a single life has been lost so far in Houston, which is, as you say, the nation's fourth largest city.

I'll repeat what the president just said, please wait from word from us in Austin, if you're in a safe place and have evacuated, before you make plans to return. There is still rain coming down. Bayous are still rising. Power is out and we need to have an orderly plan for people coming back.

There are two important announcements, though, in that regard. The first is, if you are employed at the Texas Medical Center among the essential personnel, please call in to work. The lines are open. The transportation is there, about when you should return to work.

There are some of the medical personnel that will be asked to return to work there, especially the nursing staff, so that we can care for patients not only that we have with acute care here, but Katrina evacuees and those who have been evacuated from the coastal area.

And, also, the property of the citizens of Houston is secure. There were three isolated incidents of looting. Everyone was arrested and taken off on each of those incidents and we see no further misconduct. Citizens' property is being secured.

M. O'BRIEN: Mayor White, as you look toward getting people back, when you give the green light to do that, and I underscore that because I know a lot of people are probably watching in outlying areas, sit tight and listen right now. I've got to ask you, mayor, because it was a very chaotic evacuation, a lot of people trying to get out of town at the same time, people running out of gas. It didn't go very smoothly. What are you going to do to make it run smoother when you reverse course?

WHITE: Well, of course, those circumstances that we had, many were beyond the local control of not enough fuel being stashed in accordance with the plan and not enough freeway lanes, which we remedied as quickly -- we changed the plan. I changed the plan. The state did it at my request. And what we're doing to get people back is there are plans that are in place and people need to follow the announcements which we'll make so that we have an orderly return back to Houston.

We do not expect the same issues. But remember, the public should remember that right now with a lot of the nation's refinery capacity out because of the situation with Katrina and southern Louisiana and now an assessment of damage in the Beaumont area that we have to assess fuel availability and they should wait for announcements from us.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, two thoughts that come to mind. First of all, will you do it in a staged fashion? Either town by town, zip code by zip code, something like that, to make it less of a (INAUDIBLE)?

WHITE: Well, they -- a lot of the staging will occur, too, in terms of the types of folks who will need to show up to work. And, yes, there will be some staging. Remember, on the staging, that it's a free country and a lot of the people that overloaded the systems were people that were not in the mandatory evacuation areas, where when they saw Katrina and without the availability of hotel/motel rooms in the state because of Katrina evacuees, they decided to evacuate even though they were not within the mandatory evacuation area. That same issue should not occur with people coming back. There's no urgency to get back. We'll give you a timetable. And it will be more orderly than with some of the exodus out here.

M. O'BRIEN: The other issue that came up and I know you're aware of this one and this is so-called contra flow which means turning the interstate into a one-way road.

WHITE: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: The decision came a little late, according to a lot of people who were involved. And in addition to that, people who were stuck on one side couldn't get over the medians. The police wouldn't let them over or they wouldn't pull up those jersey barriers to make way for people to get over. What's the best way to rectify that to utilize those interstate interstates better to get people back?

WHITE: Well, the issue of contra flow is closing off inbound lanes and using them as out bound lanes. That wasn't in the plan. It should have been in the plan. I and the county judge, we don't have jurisdiction but we ordered that it get down and it was done.

And in the future, people need to make wise use of those contra flow lanes. But remember, also, that will is dangers that occur when you seal off all the out bound flow or all flows in one directions of these highways because we need to be able to deliver essential services to other parts of the state. So it will be a planned process this time.

M. O'BRIEN: Mayor Bill White, city of Houston. Good luck in the days ahead as you make your assessment of what Rita did to the nation's fourth largest city. Back with more AMERICAN MORNING in just a moment.

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