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American Morning

Look at Hurricane Rita's Impact on the Gulf Coast

Aired September 26, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hurricane Rita -- seeing the destruction left behind a severe storm. Entire towns in western Louisiana devastated by wind and flooding. The full picture only now coming into focus. We're live with those new pictures showing what really happened.
Hundreds of thousands cramming the highways back to Houston. A master plan to get back to the city ignored by many people who fled it.

And in New Orleans, serious questions about the mayor's decision to let Katrina evacuees come home. A plan that could be put to the test on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning.

Glad to have you with us.

We'll get to western Louisiana and the damage from hurricane Rita in just a moment.

But first, let's say hello to Soledad.

She's in New Orleans this morning -- good morning, Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Miles, good morning to you.

Yes, let's say hello to New Orleans, Louisiana, where you can see the canal is the focus today.

Let's show you some of the damage of the canal, the sand bags there, about 400 of them. They were being choppered in yesterday, trying to repair the breach that really happened during Katrina and then sort of recurred as hurricane Rita come ashore on Friday.

Well, there was another breach, as well, or an overtopping and a recurring of a breach from Katrina not too far down. That's where we were interviewing the colonel with the Army Corps of Engineers a little bit earlier -- later yesterday -- yesterday, rather. But we showed it a little bit earlier.

But let me show you some of the damage to the Lower Ninth Ward. The people who live here are understandably furious because, look, they are underwater again. This is feet and feet of water. We're going to try to get into this neighborhood today, if we get a better sense of just how bad it is.

Not only is there water damage a second time around, also, you can see some of the homes are just flattened. So they were hit hard by the storm surge.

The mayor has invited people back and one has to imagine that people in this neighborhood will be coming back to try to see the damage. That is scaring, frankly, some of the paramedics, who feel that a lot of their job, starting today, will be trying to help people out who have no medicine, who have nowhere to go, who don't really know what to do next since everything they have is lost.

We'll take a look at all these issues today from New Orleans this morning -- Miles, back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: Lots to consider there, Soledad.

Thanks.

Back to you in just a moment.

Let's get started with a Rita damage assessment. Floodwaters are receding this morning all along the Gulf Coast, where the hurricane struck, revealing devastation left behind by Rita.

Here's a look at the town of Cameron, Louisiana. This is before Rita approached shore. Notice the homes along the beach there. And a perfectly idyllic scene.

Here it is Sunday. They're all gone. Rita came ashore near Cameron. Not a house left standing there, as you can see in that picture. That's right along the Texas-Louisiana state line. Parts of the area are under as much as 15 feet of water. Search and rescue teams are still working, they have been, 24-7, trying to pull people from the waters.

Further west, in Port Arthur, Texas, not much to return to for many residents. For those who stayed, houses are heavily damaged and searches are underway for survivors and victims. Nearly a million customers without electricity now in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. And some of those are Katrina related power outages. And that's been four weeks, as you know.

Texas Governor Rick Perry says the Gulf Coast refineries suffered only minimal damage by Rita. That's a nice little piece of good news, at least. At least four refineries, however, are shut down in the wake of Katrina. It could be November before they are working. And it'll be at least a week before residents are allowed to return home to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The city has no power, no sewer, no open stores, no gasoline. And the police chief says there's been looting and some arrests.

Chris Lawrence live in Lake Charles.

Chris is amid some of the damage. Lots of trees down in that town -- hello, Chris. CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, just an incredible amount, Miles. I mean at times it looks like you're walking through what's a forest. But we're talking about a neighborhood, a neighborhood of streets and homes. Just an incredible amount of power lines and trees down. And, in fact, what the rescue -- what some of the crews have found as they've gone out, they have found some major electrical problems here in Lake Charles.

And what we expect to happen later today is that officials will come out and they will tell some of those evacuated residents do not come back to this city until further notice.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

LAWRENCE (voice-over): The waters are receding in parts of Lake Charles, but the damage is already done. Over the weekend, hurricane Rita completely flooded these same neighborhoods and left power lines dangling across the road.

Police say there have been at least 16 accounts of looting, which is why Wilbert Victor rode out the storm inside his shoe repair shop.

WILBERT VICTOR, LAKE CHARLES RESIDENT: Once these glasses go well then, you know, they have open access to whatever is in there.

LAWRENCE: Rita ended what little hope some families had left after the last hurricane.

BRANDY DUFFOURC, EVACUEE: Come get me 30 miles in front of Lake Charles.

LAWRENCE: Brandy Duffourc has been sleeping in the back of a U- Haul with her boyfriend and three kids. Hurricane Katrina chased them out of New Orleans to Texas. FEMA let them come back to look at what's left of their home, until Rita forced them to drive for safe cover again.

DUFFOURC: In the hallway here, the wind was like blowing the truck all over the road and we were scared. We were scared.

LAWRENCE: They ran out of gas in the middle of the night.

DUFFOURC: We was like oh, what are we going to do, praying that we would see lights somewhere and they'd have gas. And then we saw -- it said Days Inn on the exit sign and we just pulled in here. That was all we could do.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It was dark.

DUFFOURC: And we just called family to come get us.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It was dark. We couldn't see nothing.

LAWRENCE: They couldn't even afford to check into the hotel. So they slept in the truck outside. They've lost everything in these two hurricanes, including any desire to go home to New Orleans. DUFFOURC: I don't want to keep running from hurricanes every time.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: The hurricane game...

DUFFOURC: Every time one gets in the Gulf we're scared, you know? I don't like that. It just feels like, you know, like we never stopped running.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It's all messed up there.

LAWRENCE (on camera): Two storms are just too much?

DUFFOURC: Too much. Too much.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

LAWRENCE: Yes, I think that pretty much just sums it up, how the whole family felt. Their family did finally come and pick them up. This morning, we're happy to report, they're all safe in central Texas. But based on everything that's happened over the past month, she says that's probably where they're going to stay for now -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Chris, so they were in the U-Haul, they pulled up to the Days Inn in the middle of this storm and they wouldn't let them come inside?

LAWRENCE: I'm sorry, can you repeat that, Miles?

M. O'BRIEN: I'm just curious why they had to stay in the U-Haul.

They wouldn't let them inside the hotel in the middle of this terrible storm?

LAWRENCE: Yes, they couldn't afford to check into the hotel. I think that's what you're asking.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

LAWRENCE: So they had to stand out there. They had just enough money to maybe get some gas and with all the stations closed for miles and miles and miles, you know, they got stuck there. And one of the worst things about it is they had gotten some new clothes from the Red Cross when they escaped from Katrina. On their trip back to check out their home, the bus company lost their luggage.

So I mean this family just cannot catch a break over the past month.

M. O'BRIEN: Boy, this seems to be a recurring theme this morning. Lots of people with not enough cash, not enough gas right now and no place to live.

Chris Lawrence, thanks very much -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks. Let's show you the industrial canal, where, in fact, the water has gone down, by some estimates, about four feet, meaning that we're not seeing the overtopping that we were seeing on Friday as hurricane Rita was coming onshore.

Now, across the way, Jay, if you'll show the Ninth Ward there. You can really see the damage. People are expected, though, to come in, the repopulation plan, as they call it, come in and at least assess just how bad it is. It's an issue, as well, in Houston, where people, frankly, want to come home.

Bob Franken is there for us this morning -- good morning to you, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

And, quite frankly, people are coming home, in spite of the requests from the various officials, state officials, even the president, to stagger their return to allow Houston to really get back on its feet.

You can see the cars zipping past me on I-45. That road at the other end comes from Dallas. Frankly, they're probably moving a little bit more quickly than they would be in the rush hour because employers were told not to bring their workers in if they couldn't, the non-essential ones, if they didn't have to. And, also, schools are not going to be open for a couple of days.

But people are coming back in spite of the fact that officials say they're concerned.

What are officials doing? They're just shrugging their shoulders and, in effect, saying whatever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF HAROLD HURTT: But all citizens should remember there's still about 300,000 people in the City of Houston that don't have electricity. We're just repopulating the stores so people will have food to buy and also the service stations are opening. So we need a little time to get ready for them.

Of course, if they get back, they don't have lights, that's going to create a bigger burden on the system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: One complication, they're expecting record high temperatures here, Soledad. And those 300,000 or so homes and businesses are going to be without air conditioning -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, lots of issues. And I think that's just one of what are sure to be many.

Bob Franken this morning.

Bob, thanks.

There are other stories making news.

We want to take a look at some of those this morning.

Carol Costello is back in New York -- good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, more Americans killed in Iraq. The U.S. military today saying at least three U.S. soldiers have died in separate incidents. And at least seven people were killed in a suicide car bombing. That attack taking place near a checkpoint close to several government buildings. The casualties include workers from Iraq's oil ministry and police recruits.

The Irish Republican Army has apparently made good on its promise to disarm. After more than three decades of armed struggle, the IRA is said to have laid down all of its weapons. Disarmament is a major step in the peace plan for Northern Ireland. We're expecting the official word in the next hour from an international weapons inspector in Belfast.

The full Senate is expected to approve chief justice nominee John Roberts this week. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Roberts on Thursday in a 13-5 vote. Debate begins today. Once Roberts is confirmed, President Bush could announce his choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

And the president is taking a closer look at what effects hurricane Rita may have on gas prices. The president is getting a briefing this morning at the Department of Energy. Topping the agenda, Rita's impact on the oil refineries and rigs. President Bush returned late Sunday from a trip to parts of the Gulf Coast.

And a tornado warning this morning for the suburbs of Mobile, Alabama. As many as four twisters touched down Sunday in northern Alabama and there are reports of damage to homes and trailer parks. At least two people were injured, so let's check in with Chad, because I know there were tornado warnings earlier this morning.

Bring us up to date -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: There were. They have not been extended into Escambia County, into parts of Florida. But we still have some spin on the radar. In fact, 22 reports of tornadoes yesterday, scattered around the Deep South.

Now, we could even see some strong weather from New York through D.C. Philadelphia, maybe not tornadoes, but strong weather nonetheless.

Here's the rain. This is the top of the rain shield from what was Rita. This is the remnants. This is just the moisture from Rita here, all the way from Erie, Pennsylvania right on down through Knoxville, almost to Charlotte this morning. It is raining in Atlanta. And the most severe weather where it is the warmest, down here from Columbus right on back down south into Mobile. That's the cell right there that is spinning, or at least was spinning. It has not reached Pensacola, and this is pretty much open farmland through here, at least for the most part. Atwood right there did get a thunderstorm, but did not get the spin of the storm.

We are also looking for other spinning things out here in the Atlantic. Not seeing very much. There's a little area of disturbed weather south of Hispaniola and there's Jamaica. There's Hispaniola. There's Puerto Rico and the storm itself, or what could be a storm, down here to the south, just kind of a cluster of clouds. No organization. And no spin so far. We'll see. It doesn't look like too much right now -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Chad.

MYERS: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, more on hurricane Rita's aftermath. We'll take you to one of the towns hardest hit by the storm. That's Port Arthur, Texas. We'll ask the mayor about damage there, as well as his own personal loss.

And later, President Bush's response to Rita -- will it help him recover from the political hit he took after Katrina?

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Take a look at this damage. These power poles down. And what that equates to now, when you combine Rita and Katrina now, over the past few weeks, more than 900,000 energy customers across the Gulf Coast region without power this morning.

Renae Conley is president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, a bit utility there.

She joins us now from Baton Rouge.

Ms. Conley, good to have you with us.

Unprecedented back to back storms. I can't even imagine how you're getting through all this.

Why don't you just, first of all, give us the tote board.

Who is without power this morning? Who can't even hear us talk right now?

RENAE CONLEY, PRESIDENT & CEO, ENTERGY LOUISIANA: Well, good morning.

Well, we have quite a few out still, although we've made some pretty significant progress in the last day.

If you remember, we had 100 -- we had 1.1 million out from Katrina between Mississippi and Louisiana. Then with Rita, we had an additional 650,000 at the peak of the storm. And then we had about another 100,000 that continued to be out on Sunday, as it rolled through north Louisiana and Arkansas.

So as of this morning, we still have about 485,000 without power, but we've been able to restore about 275,000 in the last day or so.

So we've made pretty significant progress.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, so...

CONLEY: But this storm has torn up a lot.

M. O'BRIEN: So you were just talking about Entergy Louisiana, which means it does not include New Orleans, because that's a separate unit of Entergy, correct?

CONLEY: Right. I was speaking of -- those totals included Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas...

M. O'BRIEN: OK.

CONLEY: ... and Louisiana. But we have an additional, about 200,000...

M. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. I thought we said it was. I'm sorry, so is it 900,000 or 485,000? I'm confused now.

CONLEY: OK. In the peak of the storm from Rita, we had about 650,000 out.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, OK.

CONLEY: So this morning we have about an additional -- about 485,000 out still from Rita.

M. O'BRIEN: Just from Rita?

CONLEY: But that doesn't -- yes.

M. O'BRIEN: It does not include Katrina then?

CONLEY: Yes, just from Rita.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm sorry.

CONLEY: It does not include -- it's getting confusing, but we still have about 200,000 still out from Katrina.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. I think I made matters worse there. I apologize for that.

CONLEY: That's OK. M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk about how you respond to something like that. I know whenever there's a storm like this, all the utilities kind of band together and you'll see trucks from, you know, New England and the northwestern part of the United States there putting up power poles in response.

Have you gotten that kind of support in the wake of both of these storms?

CONLEY: Yes, we have. It's here and it's continuing to come. On a storm like this, if you remember, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of Katrina, when that hit Florida. And they had over a million customers out in Florida. So then those crews came to our aid when Katrina came and hit us. And a lot of those crews have been working now, you know, we're talking six weeks of storms.

So we're continuing to rotate people out and have additional crews come to our aid.

But it's been a long storm and we have people that are tired and we need to make sure that people have patience as we go through this process.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. Those crews have got to be really, really suffering right now. You know, it's -- for them to ultimately enjoy the overtime they get, but boy, that's got to be tough.

All right, let's talk about a company which, you are Entergy Louisiana. There's another unit, kind of a parallel unit of the same holding company, Entergy New Orleans, which filed for bankruptcy on Friday.

CONLEY: That's correct.

M. O'BRIEN: And I know that's not your company, but I just want to talk about the implications there. Not only is power still a problem there, but they have a customer outage because the city is still vacant.

What are the ripple implications not just for your unit, but Entergy in general, and, for that matter, the whole grid system as a whole? Is there going to be, as a result of all of this, higher energy prices for everybody?

CONLEY: Well, when you -- have we isolated Entergy New Orleans. That is a separate operating company. And that company did file bankruptcy as a result of the fact that all of its customers are without power and we don't have a real estimation of when those will come back on. So there are not any revenues to support the costs associated with that company. And we did not want to stop restoration efforts.

So through filing bankruptcy, we were able to propose an infusion of cash from the parent company to help with cash flow so that restoration could continue. This is a very expensive storm, obviously, when you have this many customers out all across the system. So we'll be working with both at the federal level and at the state level and with our regulators to make sure that we are able to recover the costs associated with the storm.

M. O'BRIEN: Here's a final thought. And I know this is coming out of left field. But try it anyhow.

CONLEY: OK.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, 20 -- it's the 21st century and we're still putting power lines on sticks.

Why don't we bury them?

CONLEY: Well, again, it's very expensive. I mean you have a lot of infrastructure that's been there for years and years and there's things that are over top of that that people don't want to actually have dug up to bury your lines. And so you have to make a determination of what's the costs of that versus the convenience. You may have a few more outages when it's above ground, but if you have an outage below ground, it is much more timely, at times, to figure out where the outage is.

M. O'BRIEN: Renae Conley, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana.

Thank you.

Get back to work now.

CONLEY: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, we'll talk to the mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, one of the towns hardest hit by Rita. A closer look at the devastation on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: The parts of Texas that were destroyed and those spared are best seen by air.

Our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, had exclusive access to Task Force Rita commander, Lieutenant Bob Clark, on his first inspection tour of the hard hit area.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From his Black Hawk helicopter, Lieutenant General Bob Clark surveys the impact of hurricane Rita to places like Port Arthur and Beaumont along the eastern Gulf Coast of Texas. To the Task Force Rita commander, the damage doesn't look nearly as bad as he feared. But he's quick to add that doesn't make it any less of a disaster to those who have lost homes and businesses.

LT. GEN. BOB CLARK, COMMANDER, JOINT TASK FORCE RITA: The thing that impressed me was we saw almost no people down here. This evacuation business really did work.

MCINTYRE: There was an oil spill in northern Galveston Bay and some missing roofs and other property damage from wind. But the oil infrastructure was largely intact and the destruction was a far cry from these images of Mississippi's Gulf Coast, where last month house after house was obliterated by hurricane Katrina.

Clark began his inspection tour with a check on the progress of search and rescue helicopters at Ellington Air Field, south of Houston. Coast Guard crews there had been airlifting people out since the previous night. As General Clark told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in a cell phone interview from the runway.

CLARK: The place is a beehive of activity and one of the Coast Guard crewmen was telling me that some of the crews flew as many as 15 to 17 missions.

MCINTYRE (on camera): One of the challenges is to coordinate all the different helicopters. You've got the Coast Guard here. Here we see a police helicopter. And, of course, the Army Guard helicopters.

(voice-over): The military says roughly 600 people were rescued by various agencies, more than 60 by air. By day's end, it became clear that two dozen helicopters on standby at Ellington Air Field were not really needed. Aerial surveys found no one else to rescue.

But the view from the air can be deceiving. Local emergency preparedness officials are just now beginning the process of determining who's going to be need shelter or assistance in the weeks to come.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, over eastern Texas.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Texas Governor Rick Perry says preliminary estimates of the damage in the state are in excess of $8 billion -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: You know, they avoided a major hit, but, of course, that is not chump change, obviously, Miles.

Miles, I'm showing you pictures of the Lower Ninth Ward. And as we've been talking about, really since Friday, flooded once again. The people who lived there have to come back to their homes wrecked again and they are angry.

In just a little bit, we're going to talk to some of the officials here who say they are being ignored because people are putting all their resources and their focus on the City of New Orleans. That's just ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Get the latest news every morning in your e-mail. Sign up for AMERICAN MORNING "Quick News." Cnn.com/am is the place.

Still to come on our program, we'll look at President Bush's quick response to hurricane Rita. Will it be enough to offset the criticism he faced after Katrina? We'll pose that question later on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.

Just about half past the hour on AMERICAN MORNING.

We are now up about three stories. I'm trying to catch my breath a little bit. We've climbed up on the bridge, the Claiborne Avenue Bridge, which spans across the industrial canal. And we can show you, you can see the industrial canal below me.

If you look up, Jay, you'll show the roadway. That's because, of course, this is sort of like a drawbridge. It lifts up and down to let cars go across. It's up now. But if you were to continue across, you really can see where the problem is. The roadway, the bridge flooded at the end. And that is the Lower Ninth Ward, flooded again after hurricane Rita came through and sent a storm surge and some of the levees, of course, overtopped and flooding back into the neighborhoods.

Some of these neighborhoods will be one of the places that people will try to get back into today. And that, people predict, might be a huge problem because, as you can see, in some cases not a lot to come back to. So, as the mayor has invited people in and hasn't really given great guidelines about who should come in and who should not, there is some confusion.

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