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American Morning

Road to Recovery; Blame Game; Katrina: All Natural?

Aired September 28, 2005 - 08:59   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien, in St. Bernard Parish this morning.
Today, folks back at work, picking up whatever they can grab. Also, an oceanographer on the scene, trying to get a sense of exactly what caused the damage here from Hurricane Katrina.

In just about an hour, the governor of the state, Kathleen Blanco, goes before the Senate Finance Committee to explain the enormous price of rebuilding after Katrina. Is the state asking for more money than it really needs?

And how is she going to answer that stinging criticism from Mike Brown, FEMA boss, formerly. He called her government dysfunctional in his bitter testimony before members of the House. We're live in Washington with that story.

And then in New Orleans, what really happened to make the police superintendent Eddie Compass suddenly resign? We've got the inside story on that on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. Welcome back, everybody, in St. Bernard Parish, where the sun has risen. And that gives a really clear sense of just how bad it is here.

People have come out to pick up whatever they can, in many cases, really, there's absolutely nothing. Also, a man we're going to be talking to in just a little bit, an oceanographer, is really assessing just what kind of damage the storm surge did. And was it all storm surge? How much of it was wind damage?

All of that's important to really determine just what kind of role man played in this disaster. Now, let me walk you through.

Jay, if you'll follow me here, you can see the back side of this house we were in a little bit earlier. And you can se where the brick pretty much collapsed.

Watch this giant hole.

And if you walk down this way, you can see the rest of the house. The foundation has been blown off and, you know, the bed remains and the barbecue remains. And sort of half of the pool remains.

The people who live just across the way had stored a lot of their things here and have come back to find that their cars and their possessions have blown away. And they're not really sure where they've ended up.

What's more, some of the people a couple of miles down that way have found all kinds of things, packages, things with labels, houses, to some degree, that don't belong in their neighborhood that have now ended up on their front steps. Much more on what's going on here this morning, Miles, in just a few moments -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thanks, Soledad. Back with you in just a moment.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco will have a chance to refute claim that her state is dysfunctional. That's what former FEMA chief Mike Brown told a House committee yesterday.

Ed Henry live on Capitol Hill for us.

Ed, what's the governor likely to say today?

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, she'll be testifying before a Senate panel about the enormous task ahead in terms of trying to rebuild her state, but she's also likely to fire back at Michael Brown. Last night she said that he's out of touch with reality, basically, after his six hours of testimony where he repeatedly tried to shift blame to the governor and the New Orleans mayor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY (voice over): Michael Brown was grilled for over six hours and spent most of the time shifting blame.

MICHAEL BROWN, FMR. FEMA DIRECTOR: My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.

HENRY: Brown was referring to the weekend before Katrina hit, when Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin were slow to call for a mandatory evacuation. The former FEMA director charged that delay was a tipping point for everything that went wrong.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: I think it's unfortunate. I think that for a FEMA director to be, you know, in Washington and trying to deflect the tension off, you know, of his performance is unbelievable to me.

HENRY: The reaction was just as rough in the hearing room, especially when Brown claimed he was merely a coordinator during the crisis.

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: Well, and that's why I'm happy you left, because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren't capable to do the job. I would have liked you to do...

BROWN: I take great up umbrage to that comment, Congressman.

SHAYS: Why?

BROWN: Because FEMA did -- what people are missing in this entire conversation is the fact that FEMA did more in Hurricane Katrina than it did in Charley in Florida and the others.

SHAYS: Why is that relevant?

BROWN: We moved all of those in there, we did all of those things. And things were working in Mississippi and things were working in Alabama.

SHAYS: No, but see, why...

BROWN: And so I guess you want me to be this superhero that is going step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans.

SHAYS: No. No, what I wanted you to do was do your job of coordinating.

HENRY: Brown claimed that before the storm he privately warned the Bush administration and unnamed lawmakers that FEMA was not getting enough funding. This led a Republican to charge the reason that Brown is still on the federal payroll for another month is that he's being paid back for not going public with the budget problems.

SHAYS: And so I'm left with the feeling like the administration feels they have to protect you because you warned them. But you didn't warn us.

BROWN: Well, you should come over here and sit in this chair and see how protected you feel. Feel how it feels to be yanked out where you were trying to do your damnedest to make something to told to go back home, and make the decision that you're going to quit because you're no longer effective, and you are no longer effective because the media is spreading lies about a resume.

SHAYS: No. Because you didn't do a good job is why you were let go, because you were clueless about what was happening.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENRY: CNN has learned that Senator Susan Collins, who is also investigating what went wrong, is now planning to basically request a slew of documents from various federal agencies, including FEMA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and three state emergency management agencies in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. The heat obviously being turned up on federal and state officials -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Ed Henry on Capitol Hill. Thanks -- Soledad.

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

Well, there have been lots of questions regarding the sudden resignation of the superintendent of police, Eddie Compass. He announced his resignation actually on Tuesday, and no real reason was given for his departure other than he wants to take a shot at some other opportunities.

Now, Compass' assistant has been named the temporary chief. The mayor, Ray Nagin, emphasized that it was Compass' decision, in fact, to leave the job. But many wonder in the aftermath of what happened here, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that in a way, possibly, Eddie Compass was being blamed after he became kind of a media darling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES VARNEY, "NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE": I think that some of the blame probably also came to him because, as you mentioned, he had started to become more of a media darling in some people's eyes than a hands-on police chief. When he went to New York for the coin flip of the Saints-Giants game, that was something that people thought he probably shouldn't be doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Four weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck, the timing, by many people's estimation, is considered fairly unusual. The same time, when, in fact, Eddie Compass was talking about how he would personally oversee the investigation of the 249 members of the police force who were off the job, who were not accounted for during the storm.

We've heard cases of looting, allegedly, by some of the police. And also cases where they just didn't show up. And that investigation was just about to get under way.

There are other stories making news today, and Carol Costello has a look at those.

Hey, Carol. Good morning.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

"Now in the News," we begin with a commuter train accident. Take a look. These pictures just coming into us. In fact, I'm going to see them for the first time right along with you.

This is an Amtrak Acela train. It's hit a car at a crossing in Waterford, Connecticut. The accident taking place just about an hour ago.

We do have word at least one person has been taken to the hospital. That train's going to be there for some time. We'll keep you posted.

There has been another suicide bombing in Iraq this morning, this one carried out by a woman. Police say the attacker blew herself up outside of a recruitment center in Tal Afar near the Syrian border. Dozens of others were wounded.

President Bush is set to give a statement on Iraq and the war on terror this morning. The president returned Tuesday from another trip to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast region. He'll deliver his remarks at 10:20 Eastern from the Rose Garden, and we will carry that live for you.

Professional sports and steroids. Major League Baseball chief Bud Selig is set to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee in the next hour. He wants standard drug policies across the board. Also scheduled to testify, baseball great Hank Aaron and four other hall-of-famers.

And more details now about that brush fire north of Los Angeles that I told you about last hour. Officials have deployed some 100 firefighters and a helicopter to the scene. The fire considered a major emergency brush fire.

Fire officials say more than 20 acres have now been destroyed. No homes are threatened, at least right now. The Desoto exit on both sides of the 118 freeway are shut down. So hopefully you can avoid that area this morning, because it's much earlier, I guess.

Rush hour is starting out in California, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It sure is.

COSTELLO: Is it particularly dry there?

MYERS: It has been the past couple of weeks, yes.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad. Thanks a lot.

How much of the damage that we have seen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina was caused by the storm, and how much of it was actually caused, or maybe exacerbated, by what man did here? That question brings us right to Paul Kemp. He's an oceanographer at LSU, and he joins us this morning.

I've seen you around doing some measurements. What exactly are you looking for?

DR. PAUL KEMP, OCEANOGRAPHER, LSU: Well, what we were measuring here, my colleague and I, we're looking at the elevation of the storm surge inside the buildings which is the best place, ironically enough, to measure it.

S. O'BRIEN: So what does that tell you? Because here we see a foundation, meaning this is just blown out. But over there in that house we saw that actually there was measurable storm surge.

KEMP: Yes, what -- what we're thinking is that the surge was actually higher over on this side, that the surge really converged on this point. It didn't go through the trees on either side. It kind of converged here.

It was probably upwards of 15 feet on this side, and it actually took the -- it hit the second story, and so it pushed the whole building over. We do have a lot of evidence of wind damage, too, but we think most of this was storm surge.

S. O'BRIEN: So you think storm surge took this out. How high do you think the storm surge was right here?

KEMP: I'm thinking it was 15 feet above where we're standing here.

S. O'BRIEN: Now, you have a levee back there, and it actually looks fine. And it's a pretty substantial-looking levee. And I know there's another behind it as well. And actually, that direction, too, is something called the MRGO, which is -- people have been curse that here, honestly, in this neighborhood.

KEMP: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: Explain to me what that is. It was an estuary.

KEMP: Right. Well, what we called the MISTGO (ph), actually, the Mississippi Gulf Outlet. It's a channel that was built to bring -- bring ocean-going vessels into the heart of New Orleans.

S. O'BRIEN: So they cut out the -- sort of the...

KEMP: The marsh.

S. O'BRIEN: ... the weaving marsh...

KEMP: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: ... and then you have this channel...

KEMP: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: ... like kind of like a funnel for the boats.

KEMP: Well, it's -- it's part of a funnel that's actually formed by another channel, too. And we have to remember it's not just channels. We're talking about levees here. The levees are what actually the water piles up on, and that creates the dam break situation that we see here.

S. O'BRIEN: So what kind of role did the MISTGO (ph) have in exacerbating the damage that was already coming from the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina?

KEMP: Right. Right, well, I mean, obviously, hurricanes and Category 4 and 5 hurricanes are not unknown in this area. But the flood protection provided was not to that standard.

S. O'BRIEN: Now, you ran a model of this in the days before Hurricane Katrina actually made landfall, right?

KEMP: Well, that's right. Our group models every storm that comes into the Gulf of Mexico. And, in fact, by Saturday we were -- we take the National Hurricane Center predictions for winds and track, and then we use that to generate the surge. It's an oceanographic model.

S. O'BRIEN: And what you saw in that model was what?

KEMP: Well, we saw flooding as of about midday on Saturday. That we were predicting flooding at that point.

S. O'BRIEN: Massive flooding?

KEMP: Well, it was -- we were predicting overtopping of levees. And we predicting overtopping of this levee being hind us.

S. O'BRIEN: What did you do with that information?

KEMP: That information was sent over to the state office of Homeland Security, the Office of Emergency Preparedness. And I believe that it had a significant role in encouraging these state officials to evacuate and to put some urgency into the evacuation.

S. O'BRIEN: When the model, though, just hours, really, away from the storm hitting shows that levees are going to be over the top -- and the levee is right there.

KEMP: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: So that means, for this guy, it's going to be devastating.

KEMP: That's right.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think people acted fast enough or with enough sense of urgency with that information that you had on Saturday before Monday's storm?

KEMP: I think that many people did, most people did, and some didn't. I believe most of the people in this neighborhood probably did get out. I don't see the signs of emergency exit, second floor exit that we see in many of the neighborhoods in New Orleans.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think Homeland Security could have done a better job of showing -- again, just because this information is the model just days out from the storm -- that it was going to be catastrophic?

KEMP: I would say, you know, looking back, we always wish we could do better, and we wish that all of our public officials would do better. But remember, at the end, it's a personal decision whether to leave.

S. O'BRIEN: That's an interesting case.

Paul Kemp is an oceanographer with LSU.

And I know you're going to spend the rest of the day kind of looking at this neighborhood. It's your first chance to get in here.

KEMP: That's right. This neighbor has been difficult to get to. Of course it was flooded again the second time with Rita. So...

S. O'BRIEN: You'll see what you can learn from here.

All right. Paul, thank you very much.

KEMP: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to Miles in New York -- Miles.

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

Ahead of the program, we will talk to one of the many St. Bernard residents who lost one of their homes. That's coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: As the sun comes up, you can see homeowners start coming out. And they're trying to figure out what they can salvage from what is left of St. Bernard Parish.

Ronald Ruiz is one of the homeowners.

Really, your daughter owned a house here, but you live on the other side of the parish. You brought your stuff here because you thought it would be safer?

RONALD RUIZ, ST. BERNARD PARISH RESIDENT: Safer. I live outside of the hurricane protection levee system in the lower part of St. Bernard. It's called Rageo (ph). And loaded up where I figured I could keep dry between my truck and my trailer. And we brought it here, and my daughter and her husband and children and my other daughter's fiance left with me. And we proceeded to go to Florida, where my son and daughter live.

S. O'BRIEN: So you got out of town. How surprised are you when you see -- I mean, this is what you thought was going to be the safe spot.

RUIZ: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: How is it?

RUIZ: Not good.

S. O'BRIEN: How tough is it?

RUIZ: It's tough. And I even have -- haven't even been to my home yet down the road. And I already know from when my daughter came down the day before yesterday to see hers, she went to our home and it's worse than this.

There's nothing. There's no debris, anything left.

S. O'BRIEN: Why would you think that this would be the safest place when the levee is right there? RUIZ: Well, it's right there, but we had four -- we had four vehicles parked here. We took two with us. Couldn't drive them all, so I figured, hopefully, that if the water did come up, it wouldn't top the levees.

We were hoping that it would go in more to the east. And eventually, if it would have kept going, we could have been outside of the surge. And it just didn't work out that way. I knew I would lose my home. I just knew that.

S. O'BRIEN: But you didn't think your daughter would lose hers.

RUIZ: I didn't think she would lose this up here.

S. O'BRIEN: Where are your cars? You brought four, you left two. Do you have any idea?

RUIZ: Well, we took -- we took two.

S. O'BRIEN: Right. So you left...

RUIZ: We left four here.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, you left four. So where are the four? I mean...

RUIZ: I saw a picture on a computer of an overhead shot, and I think I recognized my truck, Explorer truck in this canal somewhere.

S. O'BRIEN: Down there?

RUIZ: Up somewhere towards the front, but I'm not 100 percent sure until I get to visually see it. I want to say all four vehicles wound up somewhere -- if the water topped the levees, or whatever, they wound up this way.

S. O'BRIEN: How far down?

RUIZ: Which -- it's almost to the front, the one's that on the computer.

S. O'BRIEN: A couple of miles, almost.

When you hear -- we were just talking to an oceanographer, and he said that they had a model that showed on Saturday it was going to be catastrophic, that here, come in here. Do you feel that you were not given fair warning?

RUIZ: Well, I don't know...

S. O'BRIEN: I mean, you came here because you thought the levee would protect you.

RUIZ: Well, I came here and put my vehicles here because I couldn't take them all with me, and I was hoping that they would safer here than further down. I was hoping and praying that the water wouldn't top the levees up here.

Further down, I knew it was going happen. But, I mean, who knew it was going to top over in New Orleans? The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, I mean, they can say what they want. Ever since they put it in, which is 1963 or '64...

S. O'BRIEN: It's 40 years ago.

RUIZ: ... it's been devastation ever since as far as the swamp, the trees. You have nothing to buff it, the wind.

S. O'BRIEN: That's that channel that the boat goes through.

RUIZ: Right.

S. O'BRIEN: It kind of acted like a funnel, you think?

RUIZ: Definitely. Definitely, because it gives the water a straight shot from the Gulf to come straight up just like coming up river. And there's nothing there to slow it down.

S. O'BRIEN: So who do you blame, then? Because this was a massive storm. I mean, this was a big natural disaster.

RUIZ: I blame the government since they built the levees. They built the ship channel, and St. Bernard -- everybody in St. Bernard, parish officials, ever since have been saying and telling them this was coming, because there was nothing to stop the water from coming this way. What you had at one time was you had higher land outside these levees. You had trees all the way towards Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borne (ph), almost, (INAUDIBLE).

Well, all of that's gone.

S. O'BRIEN: And it provides a straight path.

RUIZ: That's -- that's right. And if they talk about the Barrier Islands disappearing, this was St. Bernard and New Orleans' barrier islands. They're not there anymore. There's nothing to stop even a 3 or 4 from doing what this 5 did.

S. O'BRIEN: Ronald Ruiz, thank you for talking with us. And thank you for letting us, you know, walk around what's left of your daughter's home.

RUIZ: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: We appreciate it very much.

RUIZ: Thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks, Soledad.

Still to come, tips on being prepared for a natural disaster from gauze to plastic wrap. We'll tell you what you need in a personal emergency kit. That's coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: People in the path of a hurricane are often forced to leave at the last minute, rarely having time to properly prepare. With more than a month left in hurricane season, what can you do to get your family ready for an emergency evacuation? Yes, another one could come, we're sorry to inform you.

In today's "House Call," Dr. Pamela Peeke, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, joins us. She's also the author of the book "Body for Life for Women." Of course this segment applies to more than just women. And she has some suggestions for us.

Good to have you with us.

DR. PAMELA PEEKE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Oh, hello, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: What should people be doing to protect their health when they get off on these long and, well, misadventures, in some cases? We saw the case of Houston and, of course, New Orleans, both these cases.

PEEKE: Of course. You know, the first thing everyone right now -- let's not wait for another hurricane -- you need to write down what's wrong with you. Are you allergic to something? Are you on medications? What's going on with you?

And then you take that easily written -- you know, type it out -- put it into a Ziplock bag so if it gets wet, who cares? Make sure that there's more than one copy of this around. If you live with someone, friends, family, you know, what happens if, god forbid, you can't talk to someone, you're unconscious or whatever?

M. O'BRIEN: Right.

PEEKE: You've got to have that immediately available, and you've got to think about this. In hurricane season, you're either going to end up stuck at home or on the road, one of those two things. It's got to be portable. You've got to hold onto it, you've got to be able to find it quickly, especially if something happens with the house, you're running on the road, and it's hard to think about things.

M. O'BRIEN: It's almost worth putting it in your wallet, or your handbag or something.

PEEKE: You've got it.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEEKE: Yes, but it's got to be easily accessible.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEEKE: Just grab it. Sometimes there's not even enough time for that handbag. Where is it? Everyone's got to know where that information is.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. That sounds like it's very important. What else is crucial in these cases?

PEEKE: Got to know about the medications. You know, people are on medications like insulin. You can't go, you know, like a day or two without your insulin. It would be great if you, number one, not only had it written down, but had extra doses sitting around somewhere, so that if you were stuck for a week somewhere without a pharmacy, you could have access to medication.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Let's talk about medical emergency, first-aid kits, whatever you want to call them. You can buy them, sort of, you know, pre-made at the drugstore.

PEEKE: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Are those good, or are there some things you should add?

PEEKE: Actually, most of those are really good.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEEKE: You can get them fairly cheap, straightforward. One of the next things I like to do is make sure you have an over-the-counter antibiotic, a topical. Because you saw what happened in New Orleans, you get all those skin rashes and problems with dirty water and back and forth. You want to have something to be able to deal with the allergic reactions, maybe a little Cortisone on top of that.

In addition, Benadryl. You know, ingestible. What if you are truly allergic to something that happens to you out there on the road all by yourself. It's also a mild sedative. You know, especially when you need a little bit of extra...

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEEKE: ... that 33-hour trip, from, you know, Houston to Dallas, and you're in the back.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

PEEKE: And then the final thing is, if you have a problem with severe allergies, you know, like bees, things like that, then an EPI kit. You never know when that's going to happen.

M. O'BRIEN: Have that with you.

PEEKE: And Epinephrine on the road. All done, but you've got get it from your doc.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Final thought here. The people who we saw most adversely affected by this were folks on the lower end of the socioeconomic curve.

PEEKE: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: They don't necessarily have the money to put together these fancy kits. What do they do?

PEEKE: Yes. All right. You can keep it on the simple and cheap.

Just simply go out there. For about five bucks, you can just get a little Ziplock bag. Throw into it just the easiest, simple accessible resources.

You can actually get samples from your doctor. The public health departments also hand out some of these resources very cheaply. And, you know, it won't cost more than $5 or $10.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. The important thing is to get out of the denial phase. It is something that is going to happen.

PEEKE: Oh, yes. Be prepared.

M. O'BRIEN: Be prepared.

PEEKE: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: Take the time. All right. Pamela Peeke, always a pleasure.

PEEKE: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Assistant professor of medicine at University of Maryland. Always a pleasure having her drop by.

Still to come in the program, the fallout from the New Orleans police superintendent, Eddie Compass, and his surprise announcement he's quitting. How will it affect the city's already beleaguered police force? We'll look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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