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Devastation in Cameron Parish; Bush Considering Military To Lead In Disasters; Levee Repairs Ongoing; Family Relocates Twice Because of Hurricanes

Aired September 26, 2005 - 07:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: City's mayor is urging gas stations and grocery stores to get back to work, to get open and they want their workers to come back to.
Turning now to Iraq. One U.S. soldier has been killed in a roadside bomb attack. The soldier was with the 42nd Military Police Brigade.

And a deadly bombing in Eastern Baghdad. At least seven people, including several police recruits, were killed. Police say a suicide car bomber detonated near a checkpoint which was close to several government buildings. Dozens of others are wounded. Many of the casualties are employees of Iraq of the Iraqi oil ministry.

Washington played host to rallies this weekend for those for and against the war in Iraq. Police say more than 100,000 people turned out Saturday calling for the United States to pull troops out of Iraq. The rally was led by activist Cindy Sheehan.

And a few hundred people turned out Sunday for a counter- demonstration. They were showing their support for the troops. The crowd included families of soldiers killed in Iraq and war veterans.

Vice President Dick Cheney is working from home today as he recovers from surgery. The vice president walked out of George Washington University Hospital on Sunday. One day earlier, he had surgery to repair aneurysms behind both of his knees. Doctors reportedly inserted tubes in the weakened arteries to help with the blood flow. The vice president is said to be doing fine.

And not exactly a deal but there is some good news at the pumps. The price of gas fell more than 20 cents over the past two weeks to a national average of $2.81 per gallon. The survey was taken before Hurricane Rita slammed into the Gulf this weekend, but most experts say gas prices will probably stay around that level, at least in the short-term. Who knows about the long-term, though.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: So buy now. Get a tank and fill it up. Big storage facility or something.

COSTELLO: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. No, don't do that.

Thank you, Carol. Appreciate it.

Parts of Southwestern Louisiana still under water this morning. Cameron Parish, included. It was one of the hardest hit by Rita. Lieutenant General Russel Honore didn't waste any time getting on the scene. Randi Kaye traveled with the general to inspect the damage. A story you'll see only on CNN.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE: We'll leave here and go down to Cameron. Get eyes on Cameron and . . .

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): This is a man who knew where he wanted to go and we were going with him. Lieutenant General Russel Honore wanted to get a look at Cameron Parish on the southwest tip of Louisiana, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Rita.

Compare this operation, if you would, to that of Katrina. How does Hurricane Rita compare?

HONORE: Rita was a girl compared to a big league mean lady named Katrina.

KAYE: For a girl, Rita did plenty of damage, drowning the parishes along the coast. The general wasn't waiting for Cameron Parish to ask for help. That's not his style. He was going straight to them.

HONORE: When you get here, you've got to make stuff happen. People are not interested in filling out a requisition.

KAYE: As we made our way to Cameron, the general worked the phones, arranging for supplies before he'd even assessed the damage. He knows what it will look like. He's done this before.

HONORE: Because I don't think we need one there. Will need one in Cameron.

KAYE: This is where the road to Cameron ends. For the next five or six miles or so, nothing but water. In fact, most of Cameron is under 15 feet of water. The only way to get there these days is either by boat or helicopter.

We flew over Cameron Parish in the general's Black Hawk helicopter. It was getting dark, but the destruction below was clear. Water up to the rooftops. Homes ripped off their foundation. In some areas of the parish, 100 percent of the homes were destroyed. In the town of Kreo (ph), the only building left standing is the courthouse. There is water everywhere.

FREDDIE RICHARD, CAMERON PARISH EMERGENCY MGMT.: I flew over and saw the slab where my home was two days ago. So I mean a lot of these guys that are looking at the same thing. We just saw slabs.

KAYE: Our mission was also a rescue mission.

HONORE: The other thing I want is I want Marines doing search and rescue in Cameron before nightfall with a presence. A 24/7 presence.

KAYE: Late into the night we searched for two missing fishermen. No luck. General Honore continued to work to secure the parish.

HONORE: But you want your city off limits to anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.

KAYE: And to get supplies to those he knows need them most.

HONORE: Our job is to come in and help safe live and limb.

KAYE: Randi Kaye, CNN, Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN: Cameron Parish, one of the hard hit ones. Let's take a look at some before and after pictures to give you a sense of what happened there.

This is before. This is Cameron. Now, you know, this is your basic seafront scene there. A bunch of houses there. The beach. The surf. Just what you'd imagine.

All right. Now look at the after-shot. A little different angle perspective but those are all home sites there. Every last one of them washed away by that surge. And, you know, that's basic a road to nowhere now. Lots of work to be done there.

And take a look at this, too. Not too far from there. A little farther to the east, Vermilion Parish. Is a scene that was truly remarkable. This is someone who decided to ride out the storm. Folks, this is why you don't want to ride out a storm because this might happen.

Imagine what was going through his mind but to have the presence of mind to actually videotape what was going on as the waters of Rita swept in to his house. They ultimately made their way look at that. That is just really a sense of what goes on when the storm surge comes through. This family unfortunately, I can't recall his name, made their way to the attic and got out by firing a shotgun twice into the roof, blowing a hole, and lived to tell the tail. Amazing.

President Bush back in Washington this morning after visiting the stricken region on Sunday. Dana Bash live at the White House with more on that.

Dana, what's the president doing today?

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Miles.

Well yet another briefing on the effects of Katrina and Rita. This time at the Energy Department. The president will hear about some of the damage to oil refineries. But also the bigger picture issue of sky-high gas prices. That after a weekend of flurry of travel and briefings, meetings on both of the hurricanes.

In San Antonio, the White House, one of those briefings, invited cameras and reporters into stay a lot longer than normal in order to hear military leaders press the president for a national plan for large-scale disasters. One general talked about avoiding what he called train wrecks like in New Orleans where five helicopters went to rescue one person. The president's response was to push for an idea for giving the Pentagon a larger role in responding to national disasters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is there an actual disaster which of a certain size that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading a response effort. That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now this would be a major change and certainly a controversial one. As you know, right now the U.S. military is barred from any domestic law enforcement. But certainly this is something that the president says and has said pretty much for about a week and a half is something that should be looked at as a trigger for the U.S. military to get involved when local response and law enforcement is simply overwhelmed. But the White House is being very careful to say primarily, in most natural disasters, homeland security would still take the lead.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it's interesting, Dana, because that all makes sense. The federal government has the resources, the capabilities and all that and yet there are people in Congress, I saw Tom Delay, of all people, very concerned about a federal takeover of disaster response, saying it's just a bunch of bureaucracy. Interesting to hear that criticism.

BASH: Interesting, but when you think about sort of the politics of it, if you will, not that surprising. There are some conservatives like Tom Delay in Congress who are surprised to hear a Republican president calling for more of a federal role. As they would perhaps say it, trampling on state's rights.

But you also do have some Democrats like Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana also expressing some skepticism about this, saying that it is still a state and local function primarily. Also some critics say that there are already laws on the books to invite the military in but the president and the governor simply did not use it, they say, soon enough.

MILES O'BRIEN: Dana Bash at the White House, thank you very much.

Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks.

Well Hurricane Rita sent another round of flooding into New Orleans. Repairs did not hold, levees were overtopped and that meant that, once again, the ninth ward is under water. We toured the area and got a sense of the sandbags that are being placed down and some of the work that's being done to repair the levee system. We talked to Colonel Duane Gapinski. He gave us a tour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. DUANE GAPINSKI, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Friday, when we felt the effects of Hurricane Rita, this area was basically under water. And the water flowed through this gap.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: OK. So what with your first step? I mean, obviously, one, you've got to pump it out. Two, you've got to somehow build it back up again.

GAPINSKI: Actually, we've got to block it first.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: OK.

GAPINSKI: And that's what we're doing here.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: When did you put that in?

GAPINSKI: That? Actually, this went in today.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: What is it? I mean, what's holding it back?

GAPINSKI: Well, they're basically wire baskets with cloth. And you fill them up with sand or rock. And so this will you know, this provides about 10 to 12 feet of protection should the water in the canal raise again.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You've kind of stop it at least here?

GAPINSKI: And we'll stop it here. Right. And so, yes, this parking lot will fill up with water but we have a line of protection, that flood wall that runs north here.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: What about the strategy for the lower ninth ward, which is still really full of water?

GAPINSKI: Well, you can see the helicopters flying. They're dropping sandbags, blocking that water from flowing into the lower ninth ward. Once the water stopped and it's essentially stopped now. There's a little trickle but we'll continue so that nothing's flowing through there.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: There are some very angry people in the lower ninth ward who say you put up the curtain 17th Street, you put up the curtain elsewhere. Why not a big curtain for us, too?

GAPINSKI: Well, first of all, the repairs those rock dikes along the low ninth ward are higher than the repairs on 17th Street and London Avenue. Unfortunately, the Industrial Canal is 35 feet deep and, you know, in some places, half a mile across. There's no way it's physically impossible to block that the way we did on those canals. You just couldn't do it.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: You couldn't give them the sheet.

GAPINSKI: You couldn't put a yes, you couldn't put sheet pile across both ends of that canal to stop water. I mean it's physically impossible. And we did everything we could. You know, we blocked those canals, we pre-positioned equipment, we made hasty repairs to levees. You know, we did all we could in the time you know, from when we knew Rita was coming. And it mitigated the effects.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: This is all surge from Rita?

GAPINSKI: Right, this is storm surge from Rita.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: But the knocking over the these big trailers, that's all Katrina.

GAPINSKI: Yes.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: I mean, obviously, no one picked them up afterwards. I mean it's pretty . . .

GAPINSKI: Well, water is powerful. When you get a several to 20-foot wall of water, it will do some destruction.

We will have some intermediate level of protection, you know, in the coming weeks before the end of hurricane season. And so, you know, the goal my goal is, as the commander of the Unwatering Task Force, is to get rid of the surface water and provide that intermediate level of protection.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: Is it hard, though, when you have homeowners who are obviously understandably and obviously so upset and frustrated and worn out and have, you know, moved and then moved again when Rita came? I mean . . .

GAPINSKI: Sure. I mean, I certainly understand and am sympathetic to their frustration. And, you know, our job is to get rid of the water, repair the levees to some degree so that they can get back and start recovering their lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN: And you can see lots of work that still needs to be done along the Industrial Canal is the focus today for the Army Corps of Engineer. That was Colonel Duane Gapinski talking with us.

One thing that they are doing today, last night a barge was supposed to come in, get in place and the barge would have pumps on board. They would hook it up to one of the downed pumping stations and essentially make a make-shift pumping station using this barge and start pumping the water out that way. They say about 45 percent of capacity is how these pumps are running right now.

Let's see how the weather is going to be for the folks here.

Good morning to you, Chad. Well it's good news for us?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A little bit, yes. The storm has completely moved away. That threat a Rita just stopping over Arkansas and maybe even coming back down at you, now completely gone.

The threat today is actually going to be tornadoes. Big red box here. That is a tornado warning right now for Baldwin County in Alabama. That's the storm right there. There's Atwood right there. It looks like it's going to slide to the south of Atwood.

But this storm has been sitting for a very long time now. There is rain all the way up the east coast, Burlington, Albany, right through Syracuse, into Buffalo and Erie. Some of the rain a little bit heavier as you get down along this front. As this front of the rain moves into Arkansas or Virginia, moves into D.C., and also even into New York, there may be some severe weather today because of a cold front and all that humidity that's in the air.

Atlanta seeing rain showers. Montgomery seeing rain. Columbus as well. Here are some of the rainfall totals. Bunkie, Louisiana, 16 inches. Center, Texas, over 10. And even Baton Rogue, at almost 10 inches of rain fall from the storm. Beaumont, Texas, nine inches essentially. And Lafayette, 8.5. even New Orleans didn't expect this much but they got 6.5 inches of rain. Haven't heard about all of that flooding, that three to four inches of rain would occur, why it would occur? Because the pumps actually were working the entire time it was raining.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad.

So where in the world is Gwendolyn Garley. We'll catch up with our friend Gwendolyn. She evacuated from New Orleans because of Katrina, then Galveston because of Rita. We'll find out how she's doing now on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: Gwendolyn Garley and her family first left New Orleans to get away from Katrina. They settled in Galveston, Texas, finding an apartment and enrolling the kids in school there. Now Rita has uprooted her family once again.

Now we talked to Gwendolyn just before she loaded up the SUV, moved the family in advance of Rita. We have been checking in with her ever since then. Gwendolyn joins us now from Dallas, Texas.

Gwendolyn, good to have you with us once again.

And your route, we have really not paid full justice to the route. You start on your house. You were on the roof of a hotel, I believe, there for a little while. Ended up in the Astrodome. Then to Galveston. Then and onward you go. I think you ended up in Waco when last we checked.

First of all, how are you and the family doing?

GWENDOLYN GARLEY, EVACUEE OF KATRINA & RITA: We are holding on.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, it's not been easy. I know your son had an epileptic seizure. Tell me about that.

GARLEY: Well, we were in traffic for 28 hours. And he had a seizure on us. So we exit off the highway and we ended up in Waco where we checked into a hotel.

MILES O'BRIEN: Wow. Twenty-eight hours in that epic traffic jam that we all saw there. That must have been incredible. Did you run out of gas in the midst of that, food, water, all the things you needed?

GARLEY: No, we didn't run out. Every time the tank got to a half a tank, we got off the highway and start searching then. And we just got back in line as we filled up.

MILES O'BRIEN: Boy, that was a pretty smart move because there were a lot of people that just ran those tanks dry there on the side of the road. And you're pretty resourceful to do that.

So your son, how's he doing this morning?

GARLEY: Well, he's resting. Usually when he have a seizure, we just let him rest until he come out of it.

MILES O'BRIEN: Right. And have you gotten him to a good doctor? Is he going to be OK?

GARLEY: Well, we didn't get him to a doctor. We just give him his medication and let him rest.

MILES O'BRIEN: Now you're diabetic. Are you getting all your insulin like you need it?

GARLEY: I was at the hospital yesterday. And, yes, I'm in the process of getting that.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. So you are doing your best under some very dire circumstances. When last we spoke, your cousin in Atlanta saw the interview. We connected the two of you. And you had, hey, maybe I'll go to Atlanta. Have you changed your mind?

GARLEY: Well, financially, yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: Why? Tell me.

GARLEY: Well, we used our money on hotels, gas, and coming out of Galveston.

MILES O'BRIEN: So you're out of cash and out of gas and the thing you can reach is Galveston, is that what you're going to do then?

GARLEY: Yes, we're going back to Galveston, hopefully find jobs and pick up where we left off.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, how do you feel about that? Would you rather go to Atlanta or do you want to go back to Galveston? You said at one point you really like being near the water.

GARLEY: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: And then by the same token, you said you never want to go through this again.

GARLEY: Right. Well, we would loved to have went to Atlanta, but financially, were not able right now.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

GARLEY: So . . .

MILES O'BRIEN: So go ahead. Finish. GARLEY: So hopefully, you know, we'll get our jobs together, save up, and leave the coast.

MILES O'BRIEN: You know, I've got to say, Gwendolyn, I was amazed at how upbeat you were when last we spoke to you. You seem a little down today.

GARLEY: Yes. I guess I crashed. I've been on in survivor mode and, today I yesterday I just felt I felt weak. I mean, we were faced with no place to go, we didn't know where to go yesterday. We're out of cash. And we was in a hotel. So I got on the phone, I called Red Cross and they helped me.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, that's good to hear.

And you and your family, I you know, the low points have got to be really low points and I detect you're going through one now. Your husband help you out in these situations your kids? Do you kind of support each other through all this?

GARLEY: Yes, we do. Yes, we do. My daughter, he loves to write. My son, he loves to take pictures. And my husband, he's anywhere he can find a way to earn a little money, he does so.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right, Gwendolyn, next time you come on, let's bring the whole family on. We want to meet everybody this time.

GARLEY: OK.

MILES O'BRIEN: And thank you. And hang in there. And stay in close contact with us, will you?

GARLEY: I sure will.

MILES O'BRIEN: Gwendolyn Garley in Dallas and going to make her way back to Galveston.

GARLEY: Still to come on the program, Andy Serwer is minding your business. He'll tell us how Wall Street is reacting to Rita's aftermath. Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. Maybe there will be a post-Rita rally. Say that three times fast. Andy Serwer here with that. And what's going on with Boeing?

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They look like they're going to settle the strike, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN: That's a good thing.

SERWER: It is. And that could help the stock market as well. Looking for a reprieve from the stock market gaz (ph) this morning. After last week's debacle, you can see here the Dow is down 222 points.

A couple of things going on. Obviously Rita and the impact there. But also higher interest rates and the fed suggesting that it was going to continue to raise interest rates.

This morning, futures are up briskly. The Dow futures up 63 points, for instance. And the impact of Rita being a little bit less than anticipated has everything to do with that.

We're talking about Boeing this morning. You may remember, the machinist union went on strike there, idling factories. They went out on September 2nd. A contract dispute at issue.

And it appears, though, this morning that that has been settled. The machinists union apparently very excited about Boeing's latest offer and those 18,000 look like they're about to accept the new contract, which is good news, because the latest forecast from China show just tremendous demand for commercial aircraft. So Boeing needs to get busy if it's going to compete with Airbus and start making airplanes again.

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, and Boeing has done well thus far.

SERWER: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: In the Chinese market, haven't they?

SERWER: They have.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

SERWER: And there's a lot more demand where that came from.

MILES O'BRIEN: A lot of competition. There's billions and billions of Chinese flying.

SERWER: Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN: All right. In Boeing's.

In a moment, Houston officials wanted evacuees to hold off coming home after Rita. But many residents are ignoring that request. It is Texas, folks! They do what they want down there! Will that cause a problem for authorities, though? We'll take a look at that coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MILES O'BRIEN: 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.

MILES O'BRIEN: Good morning. Glad to have you with us. We'll get to Western Louisiana, 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: 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.

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