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American Morning

Rita's Devastation; Interview With Port Arthur, Texas, Mayor Oscar Ortiz

Aired September 26, 2005 - 09:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Along the back roads and bayous of southwest Louisiana, the full scope of Hurricane Rita's destruction coming to light. New pictures telling a story about her devastation.
In New Orleans, urgent repairs to the city's industrial canal levee. We'll have a live report and a look at the mayor's controversial plan to let some city residents return to their homes.

And on all roads leading into Houston, hundreds of thousands of people are coming home. Officials there put to the test again by Rita 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: These are live pictures, New Orleans. This is the Interstate 10, westbound, as people there are returning into New Orleans. Part of the plan in certain neighborhoods to allow people to come back and assess their losses in Algiers, one of the neighborhoods. Parts of the French Quarter as well, central business district. We'll be tracking that all day today as people get an opportunity to get inside those neighborhoods.

Soledad O'Brien is in New Orleans this morning. And she's on the industrial canal, where there is an important breach which needs some tending.

Good morning, Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It certainly does. Miles, good morning to you.

You know, you named some of the areas that actually are quite dry and are in relatively good shape, but the concern is that people are also coming into the neighborhoods that we can see from here that are still under water, like the Lower 9th Ward, and to the east a little bit further, like St. Bernard Parish. The traffic jams that we've been slowing of folks coming back into the city, those are people who want to eyeball the damage to their homes.

They know that they have probably lost everything. But it's been four weeks, and they want to get a chance to really see just how bad it was.

You know, that issue is raising a lot of concerns, because, as you point out, it's unclear exactly the rules for coming in. People have -- the mayor has said, you know, only come in if you're mobile, probably children shouldn't come in.

But one has to imagine, Miles, that after a month people are going to want to come back, check out the damage. And there are concerns among paramedics now that the 911 system is up, and concerns from doctors who are working at the Army hospital, really the trauma center that's been set up at the convention center, that some of these people that are coming back to their homes are going to be injured either by debris or by having heart attacks, frankly, when they see just how bad it is, and they will be inundated as well today.

So those are the stories that we are looking at this morning.

Miles, back to you.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. That's Interstate 10. Take a look at all of those vans there. Obviously, people are taking advantage of the opportunity to rent a van and get in and salvage whatever belongings they have. I guess in some cases it is a hope that they have a van full of stuff, because in many respects, many homes, people are walking away with just the very smallest trinkets, maybe a picture or two, because the water is such a devastating destroyer.

We will be tracking that story all throughout the day. Let's do a damage assessment now in the wake of Rita.

Here's a look at the town of Cameron, Louisiana, coming up. There it is. There it was Thursday, Rita approaching the shore, a little high surf there. Beautiful, ideal beach community.

Here it is now, no homes, nothing. Rita came ashore right near Cameron, just east of the Texas-Louisiana state line. This was on the unforgiving side of the eye. And certainly no forgiveness there. Nearly all the homes are destroyed, leveled, really.

And parts of the area are under as much as 15 feet of water. Search and rescue crews working almost nonstop to pull people from the floodwaters.

It will be at least a week before residents are allowed to return to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Meanwhile, the city has no power, no sewer system, no open stores, no gasoline.

At least half a million customers without electricity in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Some of them have been without power since Katrina, four weeks ago. Texas Governor Rick Perry saying Gulf Coast refineries only suffered minimal damage by Rita.

No deaths to report in Texas or Louisiana related to Rita coming ashore just yet. Loss of homes and property, though, is great. Estimates of insured losses range from $2 to $7 billion.

Chris Lawrence live now in Lake Charles, one of those areas hard hit by Rita.

Chris, the water is receding, but the prospects are still not so great, are they? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Miles. It's almost like the waters recede and all it does is reveal more problems for the city of Lake Charles. In fact, we expect some of the governmental officials here later this afternoon to come out and tell those folks who evacuated, do not come back to the city of Lake Charles until further notice.

That could be a week. That could be several weeks from now, depending on how fast the cleanup goes.

This is why. I mean, you take a look at some of the damage that the storm did here. Literally snapped trees, put them right on top of homes. As you go along some of the streets here, you've got power lines tangled in the middle of some of these trees.

And we're not talking about one street or a couple streets. This is dozens and hundreds of streets along Lake Charles.

Lake Charles is not a small town. This is a -- this is a bigger city. And with New Orleans down, the state of Louisiana is depending even more on its other cities, like Shreveport, like Baton Rouge, like Lake Charles.

You take out another major city on the western side of the state and you can imagine the impact that it's having here on the state of Louisiana. Just a tremendous amount of problems.

Take a look again here. This is why they tell people evacuate, do not stay in your home, get out and do not come back, because you could imagine what it's like to be inside when that thing comes down on top of your home in a storm.

In their investigation of the area, the repair crews have found some major electrical issues here. So even when they start to get some of these neighborhoods back on line, you've got to repair those main lines before this city can even hope to start getting anything close to back to normal -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Chris Lawrence there in Lake Charles.

Let's move east, shall we? Let's move actually all of the way over toward Lafayette, Cajun country, Vermilion Parish. Hundreds of people there rescued from communities that are covered with water. Ed Lavandera is live in one of those towns, Erath.

And Ed, still a lot of water there, obviously. Is it receding at all?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are watching it recede. You can look at this house right behind me. You might be able to make out the water level, which is about three -- about three feet higher than what it is -- than what it is right now.

So we are seeing water levels drop here significantly. And we've also seen -- this is the main road that kind of takes you into this town of about 3,000 people. We've also been seeing a lot of people kind of making their way in on four-wheelers, in trucks that can navigate through the water. We've probably got about a foot and a half of water here on this main street that takes you into town. And we've seen a lot of people start coming in to get a sense of what they will be coming home to here in town.

In Vermilion Parish, really the -- everything south of Highway 14 really took quite a hit. And we're on the very northern edge of that. And this is where the water is taking the slowest to recede from.

Over the weekend, almost 300 people were rescued from their homes. But what is interesting here in Vermilion Parish, compared to what happened in Lake Charles, is that here there wasn't a -- there hasn't been a lot of storm damage. Homes are intact, power lines are up. We haven't seen a lot of trees knocked over or anything like that.

Here, all of the damage has been caused by the flooding. And now they'll have to try to figure out, even though the homes are still intact for the most part, whether or not they will be salvageable. And that's a question many people have as they're starting to make their way back into their homes -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Ed Lavandera in Erath. Thank rou very much -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles. Thanks.

You know, a name that we heard a lot here in New Orleans was that of Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who got on the ground and really just took charge of a disintegrating situation. Now Lieutenant General Russel Honore has moved west. First guy down in western Louisiana, practically, as they were dealing with their devastation from Hurricane Rita.

Let's get right to Barbara Starr this morning.

Barbara, good morning.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Soledad.

Well, indeed, he has moved west into those really devastated southwest Louisiana parishes. We talked to General Honore on the phone just a little while ago, as he was, again, preparing to go up in his Black Hawk helicopter and survey the territory. We got his morning assessment.

His feeling, he says now, is that with all of this floodsing, with all of this devastation, pretty much they have completed now the search and rescue effort. They will continue to patrol. They will continue to look for any survivors. But he thinks that at this point they have pretty much assured themselves that almost everyone has evacuated.

The devastated, however, Cameron Parish, that is going to be a problem, to bring it back up and running. Right now the plan is to put a military-style tent city into Cameron Parish so that the parish government officials can at least move back in, set up and try and get their local government running. That will be the first step to rebuilding, General Honore says.

Already, the military has put in a communications package, Internet and cell phones, that they hope will help Cameron Parish. But the Coast Guard is still patrolling those waters, still keeping people from going back in. One of the other priorities, General Honore says, get those canals down there cleared out so that commerce can begin moving.

His next step will be to go to Vermilion Parish. About 40 percent flooding there, he says. They want to get that cleared out, too. But again, the same strategy, try and help the parish government officials get back in, get the FEMA assistance in there, and then hopefully start getting things cleaned up so people can begin to move back in.

General Honore also tells us that, unexpectedly, they now discovered that about 4,000 to 5,000 head of cattle may have perished in those floods down there -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, just one angle on the devastation and the loss there today.

Barbara, let me ask you a question, because you throw out the Coast Guard, the National Guard, FEMA. All of these are different groups run by different people on the ground. Give me kind of a walkthrough of how the hierarchy and the power structure works, really.

STARR: Indeed, Soledad. It begins -- begins to be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but actually think of it this way: the Mississippi River divides the country, divides who runs what. West of the Mississippi, Texas, that is Lieutenant General Robert Clark, leading most of the active duty military effort to clean up in Texas from Hurricane Rita. But east of the Mississippi, in close conjunction with General Clark, is General Honore, in southwest Louisiana now, also continuing to direct much of the effort in those locks in New Orleans.

And the third man, general -- Admiral Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard. He is FEMA's point man on the ground -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Hopefully all working together, finally, smoothly, and in concert.

Let's show a picture now, guys. These are the barges I believe that they were hoping to bring down here. Barges like this are going to have pumps on them. They will be going the other direction, but they will be building up the downed pumping system just down the way under that blue bridge, Jay, if you can show it.

So you can see a little bit of traffic moving through here. We're going to see something similar as those pumps come through, trying to help pump out the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish, under way today.

There are other stories making news this morning that we want to get to. Let's get right back to Carol Costello in New York.

Carol, good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Good morning to all of you.

"Now in the News," a major step towards peace in northern Ireland. The Irish Republican Army has apparently disarmed. We're getting the official word right now from the Canadian general who oversaw the disarmament process. The IRA now making good on a July pledge to abandon all of its weapons.

Turning now to Iraq, three U.S. soldiers have been killed in separate roadside bombings today. And in eastern Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed at least seven people and wounded dozens of others. The casualties include workers from Iraq's oil ministry and police recruits.

The debate over evolution takes center stage in a federal court today. A Pennsylvania school district is defending its policy to tell ninth graders about the so-called intelligent design theory before they begin biology lesson on evolution. Proponents of intelligent design say they found holes in the theory of evolution that can be only explained by an outside intelligent source. Many scientists say intelligent design is just creationism with a different name.

We are awaiting word this morning from President Bush on fuel supplies after Hurricane Rita. The president is getting a briefing this morning at the Department of Energy. It's believed the storm did not have a huge impact on the oil refineries and rigs in the Gulf Coast, but President Bush is expected to speak at 10:55 a.m. Eastern. CNN will, of course, have live coverage.

To the forecast center to check in with Chad.

Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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

Still to come, Rita's affect on gas and oil prices. Find out whether you can expect a break at the pump. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Live pictures over the city of New Orleans. And what you're seeing is traffic on Interstate 10, inbound to some of the neighborhoods which are opened up by the mayor. Algiers, which escaped a lot of the flooding, and the central business district, the French Quarter, the uptown section, all areas that the mayor has opened the doors to folks to come in, assess the damage, as he puts it, start helping to rebuild the city.

But I should tell you there appears to be a fair amount of confusion as to how this is all supposed to unfold. It's supposed to begin at 9:00 local time. It's now 8:17 in the morning there, and there seems to be some confusion on where people can go.

Some officers letting people by roadblocks, other others not. Yet another little footnote of chaos in the wake of Katrina. We'll keep you posted as they try to sort all this out, and as people pulling up with those rented vans, in many cases, try to salvage what they can.

In Port Arthur, Texas, the wounds of hurricane damage much fresher. Hurricane Rita this morning, no power, no water there. Some parts of the city on the western banks of Sabine Lake under water. Other parts are dry. Being on the western side was key.

Oscar Ortiz is the mayor of Port Arthur. He joins us now.

Mayor Ortiz, good to see you. When last I saw you, you were up in Lumberton, where you and a lot of the town -- city officials evacuated. All the fire trucks, the police officers, everybody was up there. That was probably a good move, wasn't it?

MAYOR OSCAR ORTIZ, PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS: Yes, it was. It saved all our equipment, and it kept us in constant command for what little we could control down here during that storm. But we have since moved our command headquarters down here to the Holiday Inn Park Central so that we can have a closer look at the city.

We have FEMA down here with three of their people assessing the damages. I took a fly over the city last night -- or yesterday, late yesterday evening, and what I found is what you were saying. In Sabine Pass, we have a lot of devastation over there. We still have boats sitting out there on 87. We had a house out there yesterday, but we had to cut that house in half in order to be able to get in there and get some people out.

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, really? Wow. Were they OK? Were they OK, Mayor?

ORTIZ: Well, they were OK. They were OK.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow.

ORTIZ: We got them out of there. And then we have the area around the Orange Bridge, where we had a herd of about 200 or so cows. And what I could figure out is there must be at least 150 of them that are dead, just as we found in Sabine Pass, also, a lot of dead animals.

M. O'BRIEN: I can't believe anybody would try...

ORTIZ: But so far, nobody.

M. O'BRIEN: I can't believe anybody would try to ride it out in Sabine Pass.

(CROSSTALK)

ORTIZ: Yesterday, we had one individual that tried to, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

ORTIZ: Yes, it is. We got him off of there with the Coast Guard.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow. Let's -- I want to talk about this Holiday Inn command post there, because it's made for kind of a strange mix of people, so to speak.

You actually have a lock up there right beside the bar, and people have been arrested for looting are there right beside the police officers who arrested them earlier. How has that been going?

ORTIZ: Yes. Well, what we do, we keep them there for x number of hours, and then we'll hurdle them all together and take them up to the county jail and put them in there permanently. But we're just bringing them in, and we've got to have a place to hold them. We can't be making runs up to the county jail all the time because that depleats our manpower downtown.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. No holiday for them at the Holiday Inn, we hope.

Let's talk about in general -- the assessment I got, I was talking to one of your battalion fire chiefs immediately after the storm. And, you know, he said this wasn't the worst feared because you didn't -- you weren't on the less forgiving side of the storm. You were on the easy side, if there is an easy side. It's all relative, of course.

ORTIZ: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And as a result, you didn't get that huge storm surge that you feared the most, right?

ORTIZ: Right. It didn't get as bad as we thought. We thought we were going to have about 20-foot storm surges. What we did get in Sabine Pass was 10 foot. So that put all the houses under water.

But, you know, we got enough damage off the winds simply because we have no power in the city of Port Arthur, we have no water, we have no gas. We basically don't have anything right now, any of the amenities that people need to come back into town. That's why I'm not allowing people back in here, at least for another three or four days.

M. O'BRIEN: Three or four days at least. So if you're -- if you're from Port Arthur, and you're hearing our voice right now -- you just heard the mayor -- stay put. Continue watching CNN. And we'll keep you posted, right?

ORTIZ: Yes. Yes, the only people we're letting in is the workers for the refineries. And my fly-over yesterday, I had two refineries that had leaks. One had a gas leak, and I don't know what the other one was.

So they're in there working. Most of the refineries had three foot of water, and so they're trying to pump their water out.

I don't like to shatter anybody's dreams, but they're telling me they're going to -- it's going to take them three to five weeks to get up and running. So I guess you know what that's going to do to the gas prices.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, that's a little worse than we thought. Three to five weeks for all of those refineries there?

ORTIZ: Yes, sir, that's what they're telling me.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Well, that's -- that's a little piece of news there.

ORTIZ: Yes. Well, I heard somebody say something different. That's why I thought I would let your listeners now that -- and this is one of the big refineries, which is the Valero refinery, now the biggest refinery actually in the United States of America. And they're telling me their refinery may be down three to five weeks.

M. O'BRIEN: OK. Well, that's big news. Thank you very much, Mayor. Sorry we kind of buried the lead on that one.

The mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, is Oscar Ortiz. And he joins us from his city, trying to come back off the ropes today post Rita.

Still to come, more on the flooding in New Orleans. Some neighborhoods are under water yet again. And they had just dried out.

What a psychological thing this must be. It must have a tremendous effect on the residents. We'll talk to one, a friend of ours. Julia Reed is back. That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Pictures, live pictures now, the city of New Orleans. Actually, we believe this is Kenner. And the reason we have been able to kind of cipher that out is that this person who has just returned home for the first time, we believe, has a Kenner Fire Department T-shirt on. So you'll excuse us as we try to sort through all of this as he looks up at the helicopters saying, "What do you want?"

And he is obviously -- has driven in there and is going through, with hip boots and all, going through the process of trying to assess the damage at his house there. And, you know, it's interesting. When you look at these houses, you know, you would think, well, that's that looks fine. But you walk inside and they're a wreck. You know, 10 feet of water has been through some of these places. I don't know if that's the case right there necessarily. But the point is, you can't really tell sometimes how bad the damage is.

And that brings us to Julia Reed, who -- a friend of ours, works for "Vogue" and "Newsweek" and is a New Orleans native, has a home there, has been back, has seen it.

And good to have you back, by the way.

JULIA REED, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Thank you. Glad to be here.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, I suspect so.

It's -- you've had a chance to assess the damage generally and specifically. Let's talk about your general take on where the city is right now.

REED: Well, I'm still, you know, as a resident and as a journalist, sort of mystified about the governor's repeat call. I mean, he sort of -- you know, last year -- I mean, last week he got derailed by Rita. But now he's saying -- but it's almost like, "Y'all come back now, you hear?" I mean...

M. O'BRIEN: That's the mayor now.

(CROSSTALK)

REED: Yes, sorry, the mayor. I mean, he still -- I mean, Thad Allen, who is the vice admiral of the Coast Guard, as you know, keep saying, well, we kind of need a plan. And I don't -- as a citizen, I don't feel like I'm get that from my mayor.

I mean, my husband was in the city yesterday. There's still just a handful of stoplights, for example, that work. So he wants, you know, 100,000 people to come back in, but you can't really safely drive a car.

Rita brought a lot more tree damage even -- and this is in the dry sort of "safe areas" that he wants re-populated. There's been no discussion really of, you know, neighborhood by neighborhood, how's the water supply? Can we bathe, can we cook, what can we do?

And there's no mention of the school system. Now, I mean, he's already said it's going to be a re-population by adult people like me with no children. But, you know, I would also just like to hear, hey, look, we had to bankrupt (ph) schools in the first place. Most of these schools need to be rebuilt.

Is there a timetable? Are we working on this? Is there anybody around that's thinking about it? Are we going to have a little commission? What?

M. O'BRIEN: There are so many questions...

REED: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: ... that come to mind when you think about this. On the one hand, you know, you can't fault the mayor for a little wishful thinking. You know, get the city back...

REED: No, I'm totally on his side.

M. O'BRIEN: But on the same token, you've got to wonder how plugged he is to the reality that's going on.

REED: Well, I mean -- exactly. I mean, I've talked to so many friends of mine who have restaurants and small businesses like that who could serve. I mean, there are obviously no tourists, but the tourist economy could serve the thousands of insurance adjusters, news people, engineers.

I mean, you know, there are tons of people there who would be willing to do business. I mean, I keep -- I'm going back in a day or two, and all my friends keep saying, "Please bring ice and groceries," which -- well, I mean, because you still can't buy them there.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes. So, I mean, let's get the retail -- that's kind of an important piece.

REED: I mean, I would think that should be his priority. I mean, if Allen is saying let's get a timetable, let's get a plan...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

REED: ... I would get those folk in first and say, what can I do for you? Does your restaurant have electricity? You know.

M. O'BRIEN: Make it possible, right. All that infrastructure.

What was it like, though, seeing Rita barrel through, and then seeing those levees compromised again? That's just got to shake the very foundations of a lot of people's spirit here, just as you're kind of trying to pick up the pieces.

REED: Yes, I think it's such an emotional whammy, which is why, you know, you can forgive the mayor for saying, oh, come on, let's come back in, despite what we just saw on TV. But, you know, what's the most unbelievably tragic to me is the people.

I mean, can you imagine? I mean, Job doesn't have anything on these people. I mean, can you imagine evacuating to Houston and then -- I mean, most of my friends did go to Houston and did go to Lafayette, Louisiana, and Lake Charles and places like that, and then they had to go again.

M. O'BRIEN: And on they went elsewhere. Right? I mean, it's incredible.

I don't know if you saw Gwendolyn Garly (ph), who we've been following.

REED: I did, yes. I saw...

M. O'BRIEN: A terribly tragic story, magnified by many thousands. There are many other stories like that. It's awful.

REED: No, it was tragic. And that's why I think that, you know, to ask these people who have been wandering in the wilderness, so to speak, come on home, they want some reassurances that we're just not getting. I mean, I think the main thing is to get people information, and nobody has any hard info.

M. O'BRIEN: What's your take? Will people come home en masse? Or are there just a lot of people...

REED: No, en masse is not a term I would use.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

REED: I mean, there are people like me that have businesses on the ground that need to come in there. I don't have a child in school.

You know, I mean, topless bar owners, it's an excellent time to be a topless bar owner. Three of those are a up and running.

M. O'BRIEN: It is New Orleans, after all.

REED: You've got a huge male population there for like -- there are going to be a lot of insurance adjusters on Bourbon Street this week. But other than that, you know, there's not really -- I mean, it's going to be -- you know, it's going to be an adult city. It's going to be the sort of city of sin that people imagine New Orleans to be at times.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, all right, maybe the new New Orleans will be the like the old New Orleans in some senses, right?

REED: Hopefully not, but we need to get some kind of plans going before that is saved.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, bring on the plans. We're in favor of that.

Julie Reed, thanks for dropping by.

REED: Thank you so much.

M. O'BRIEN: Keep us posted, OK?

REED: I will.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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