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American Morning

Northeast Soaked Again With Seventh Straight Day of Rain; Fear and Desperation in Pakistan

Aired October 13, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Northeast soaked again with a seventh straight day of rain. As much as half of a foot more expected in some places and already deadly flooding and a dangerous situation there getting much worse. We've got a complete forecast ahead.
Fear and desperation in Pakistan -- more aftershocks in the capital today. And an enormous job finding food and shelter for two- and-a-half million people left homeless by the earthquake. We'll get a live report from there ahead.

And did the White House go too far discussing the religious beliefs of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers? A political strategy -- could it backfire? We'll look at that 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.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.

Welcome, everybody.

You know, the first day of rain we were like well, we need the rain. The trees need it.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That was nice.

S. O'BRIEN: The second day, the third day, then the weekend, now we're in the seventh day. It's just kind of getting old.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, it's old. And yesterday I had no umbrella or raincoat and I realized what a fool I was out there. A very wet one. But it just continues. And it's serious business.

The relentless rain is where we begin this morning -- swollen creeks, rivers causing flooding problems from New Jersey to New Hampshire, all throughout the Northeast.

Now, last hour we hoped to check in with Dan Lothian live from Alstead, New Hampshire. He couldn't get to his live shot location and -- but we're going to give him a pass today, because he's got a very interesting story to tell about just what it's like navigating the roads in New Hampshire -- Dan, tell us about your journey.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, it really is difficult. Just because roads are on a map, it doesn't mean that you can get there. Many of the roads are washed out and many of the roads are simply just blocked. We would go to certain intersections and we would meet up with National Guard troops, who would send us back in the opposite direction where we just came from and would go back there. Another road would be blocked, we would be sent in a different direction.

Essentially, we were trying to get to this point right along the river, which is River Road here in Alstead. And there is only one way to get here, and it's quite tricky, especially when it's dark and so many roadblocks.

Some people are being stopped. They're not allowed to come in. Others can kind of sneak in. But, yes, it's very difficult to get around here when a lot -- we saw bridges, the bridges that have been washed out. Many of the bridges, most of the bridges in this town have been washed out. So it's very difficult to get from Point A to Point B.

M. O'BRIEN: Hey, Dan, you said you had ran into some National Guard troops along the way.

What is their role? Are they manning checkpoints to guard against looting? Are they just trying to keep people out of harm's way? Or both?

LOTHIAN: It didn't seem that there was any sort of guarding against looting. It was more of trying to direct traffic, to keep people from entering areas where they should not be entering. At one point, we said, well, what about all these other cars that are coming by here? And they told us well, those are people who are exiting, not people who are going in. So it seems that they're essentially just guarding the various intersections.

But certainly, I mean, there's a lot of concern here. The main concern, obviously, is all the water that's here, not only in the ground that's so heavily saturated, but more rain that continues to fall. It's not heavy rain, it's light rain. But any rain at this point is a big concern, as you know.

Three people have already lost their lives, three to four people are missing. At least a dozen homes have been destroyed here. This is the hardest hit point in the New England area from this storm. Dozens of other homes have been damaged, heavily damaged. Right now, emergency officials are going door-to-door kind of giving people information, letting them know what they should do if, indeed, this area starts flooding again. As I said, that's a big concern as they're watching the rain falling. They're not evacuating yet, but they want to make sure that all the residents here, who could end up in harm's way, know how to get out of harm's way -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: So they're basically giving them kind of an escape plan, or at least telling them you'd better have one, right?

LOTHIAN: Exactly. That is the biggest issue right now. They don't want to wait until the water starts rising and then folks are saying OK, you know, how do we get out of here?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

LOTHIAN: They want to give them all the information before the water starts rising.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Dan Lothian, safe and, relatively speaking, dry journeys to you.

LOTHIAN: OK.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll be back checking in with you in just a little bit.

Chad Myers is watching things from, well, 22,000 miles up.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Actually, that's the radar there.

MYERS: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: That's not quite that high.

MYERS: That's on the ground.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

Anyway -- Chad...

MYERS: Good morning, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: ... not a good prognosis, is it?

MYERS: Not really. And the worst part about all of this prognosis and -- because now this is the best part of the day. This is the lightest part of the rain. The word you're probably going to hear by 5:00 or 6:00 tonight is orographic. That's going to be the word of the day. What does that mean?

Well, the wind coming in from the east and it hits the land. The land kind of gets in the way. And the land goes up, especially through the Catskills, the Berkshires, all the way down into at Adirondacks, and even up into parts of Montreal, up the St. Lawrence Seaway. There's some mountains around the St. Lawrence Seaway, as well.

As that air comes in and gets lifted by the mountains, it gets pushed up, it gets cooled off. Cold air can't hold as much air as warm air -- as much water as warm air. So it squeezes that water out and it's just going to make more rain.

Where is the water coming from? Still this tropical connection from -- here's Bermuda. Here's Jamaica. Coming up and around, blowing the moisture, blowing tropical like moisture at the Northeast. And then it gets into the colder air and it can't handle it, it can't hold it. So it has to rain out. And so for the next 24 hours, the heaviest rain is going to be probably west of the Hudson and then by tonight it moves, and moves east of the Hudson.

Right there is where that live shot was. Guess what? You're very close to the white area, which, if you look off, that's the end of the screen, that's the end of the map, that's three inches plus everywhere there in white.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, what a mess.

MYERS: Back to you guys.

M. O'BRIEN: Orographic is your word of the day.

MYERS: Orographic lifting.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

S. O'BRIEN: What a mess it's going to be.

M. O'BRIEN: Which means caused by the mountains, right, Chad?

MYERS: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: There you go.

Always learn something from that, don't we?

S. O'BRIEN: That's very smart of you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: I just cheated.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I know you did.

M. O'BRIEN: I looked it up on the Web.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.

You know, weather of another kind is going to be a big problem in Pakistan, where they're cleaning up from that earthquake there.

Carol has got a look at that and the other top stories this morning -- Carol, good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

You're right, it's so cold in the mountains and the rain is coming down, or it has come down, impeding rescue efforts. Pakistani officials say they are planning, though, to set up tent villages to house thousands of people in the aftermath of that earthquake. The death toll from Saturday's quake has hit 23,000. Millions are left homeless. The Pakistani cabinet held an emergency session earlier today. They said the disaster will cost billions of dollars. International donors have already pledged about $360 million to offset those costs. President Bush planning to address U.S. troops in Iraq this morning. The president will speak directly to forces stationed in Tikrit through a video conference hookup from the White House. We will have live coverage of that. It will start at 9:45 a.m. Eastern.

The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records on suspicion of insider trading. Sources cited by the "Washington Post" say the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into Frist's July sale of stock in a company founded by his family. Frist's spokesman says he is cooperating fully with the investigation.

And it's not looking good for the disaster agency FEMA. The self-imposed deadline for getting all Katrina evacuees out of shelters is this weekend. The head of the relief effort says there are still 22,000 people waiting in emergency shelters. Another 400,000 are believed to be staying in hotels or with family. FEMA says it's working around the clock to try to meet its goal to provide them with long-term housing. But it's not looking good right now -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: That's tough.

All right, Carol, thanks a lot.

FEMA has also been on the ground in Alstead, New Hampshire. That's the area that was hardest hit by the flooding there. And also today more rain in the forecast.

Joel McCarty is with the City of Alstead and he joins us.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for talking with us.

JOEL MCCARTY, ALSTEAD SELECTMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

S. O'BRIEN: How is it going today?

Can you hear me?

Hey, Joel?

MCCARTY: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning.

How is it going today for you?

MCCARTY: Quite well.

S. O'BRIEN: It is? Good.

MCCARTY: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: What's going well? MCCARTY: Well, I'm standing here at the edge of the bridge waiting for a guy from the state to show up so we can do another in a long series of dam inspections this morning.

S. O'BRIEN: So you feel like some progress is being made.

You know, you still look, though -- I can see the water behind u. You've got a lot of water there. You've got a bad forecast ahead.

Are you concerned about all of that?

MCCARTY: No, no, no, no. Of course we are. But there's a whole lot less water in that river than there was just a day ago, or the day before that.

S. O'BRIEN: All right.

Well...

MCCARTY: And the channel is quite a bit wider than it used to be, so it has more capacity.

What we don't understand is how much rain there's going to be. So we're all scurrying about trying to figure out exactly how to manage that, which is why we're headed up to do another dam inspection.

S. O'BRIEN: How would you manage it? I mean I've heard anywhere from somewhere around three inches, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. Three inches of rain comes into an area, I mean we're looking at the pictures. It looks bad.

How are you going to manage that?

MCCARTY: You know, the two hardest things to find in this town in the last week have been cell phone batteries and high quality information. I've seen weather reports in the last two hours indicating anywhere from a half an inch to seven inches. So we're going to prepare for the worst. We have, thanks to the state and with some help from FEMA, we've got a superior local communications system now.

I'm convinced that we can get the word out to every corner of town in just a matter of moments if we need to.

S. O'BRIEN: So do you...

MCCARTY: And, of course, everybody's thinking about nothing else than the weather. So we're all sort of poised waiting for the weather's next move.

S. O'BRIEN: So you're saying you're having a little trouble getting high quality information and batteries, obviously, too.

Do you feel like you're getting the help you need or are you frustrated? MCCARTY: No. Of course, we're frustrated by the circumstances, but not by the level of cooperation. The state, especially, has gone the extra mile to provide us with the technical and physical resources we need. There's 24-hour road repair and stabilization going on in about every section of town that's been affected.

As of Monday, every town road and the principal state roads were impassable. And every hour that goes by, that situation gets less and less bad.

So there -- I'm sorry you can't see it from where you are, but there (AUDIO GAP) people in the construction business right now in this town. And most of them have been working since Sunday morning.

S. O'BRIEN: That's such great news to hear, you know, because the truth is often you hear the opposite, that it's not going all that well.

A quick final question for you. Update me on the search for the folks who are missing. And I know some bodies are still being searched for, as well.

MCCARTY: There are some privacy issues there. The search continues. How about that?

S. O'BRIEN: All right, I'll take that.

It's tough, tough going there, though, I know, with the bad weather and all.

MCCARTY: Well...

S. O'BRIEN: Selectman Joel McCarty joining us with an update.

Thanks.

We'll check in with you again to see how it continues on in the next couple of days -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: A 23-year-old man from Georgia facing charges of stealing a $7 million Cessna jet and then taking a few friends on a joy ride. How's that for a joy ride?

CNN's Susan Candiotti tracks the plane's odyssey.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has learned the pilot police say swiped this $7 million plane for a joy ride was flying on fumes when he landed with five friends aboard. A source close to the investigation says Daniel Andrew Wolcott made at least one stop in Georgia before taking off again with five passengers.

Two days after the missing plane showed up in Georgia from Florida, Wolcott turned himself in. Police say the 23-year-old of Buford, Georgia managed, apparently without much difficulty, to take the Cessna Citation overnight Sunday from St. Augustine, Florida and fly it to Gwinnett County, Georgia, a little over an hour in a jet if flown directly. But how?

MATTHEW SMITH, GWINNETT COUNTY AIRPORT: When you fly it, it's essentially like a car. You can go where you want. A jet that size, you typically are going to file a flight plan, but you're not required to.

CANDIOTTI: That's right. No flight plan required if you're flying below 18,000 feet. The plane's transponder was disabled, police say, or radar would have recognized the Cessna. The FAA is checking radar recordings for evidence of the flight.

The Cessna landed at night, possibly using its radio transmitter to turn on the unmanned runway lights.

(on camera): Security cameras often can catch a suspect in the act and there was a camera pointing at the place where the jet was parked. Anyone can watch it on the Internet. But when you click on it, the page is empty. That's because the camera was discovered missing after the jet disappeared.

(voice-over): Police say the crew left the plane unlocked and no key was needed to start the engine. As for security, the airport has no overnight guard, not uncommon for small airstrips.

So far there is no indication terrorism was involved.

OFFICER DARREN MOLONEY, GWINNETT COUNTY POLICE DEPT.: Wolcott never plainly stated what his motive was. However, our investigation indicates this was just his idea of a joy ride.

CANDIOTTI: However, sources say, the incident raises questions about security at small airfields.

Wolcott faces criminal charges in Georgia and theft charges in Florida are expected.

MOLONEY: It's kind of sad. From everything I have been told, this young man had an extreme talent, a God given gift to fly planes, and he blew it.

CANDIOTTI: So far neither Wolcott nor his lawyer has made any public statement.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: What was he thinking?

Now, a couple of things. We pulled up his file this morning on the FAA airman database. He's a commercial instrument, multi-engine pilot who is type rated in that Cessna jet. So he's...

S. O'BRIEN: He's qualified to fly that?

M. O'BRIEN: ... a very experienced pilot, is the net on that.

So, clearly, you know, I want to -- a couple of things.

You don't need a key to start these things up, but you need a lot of experience to make something like that happen safely.

S. O'BRIEN: Is it typical to not lock the plane? I mean they said the crew left the door open.

Is that standard in a small airport?

M. O'BRIEN: I have left my plane unlocked many times, yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh?

M. O'BRIEN: And, you know, airports are -- you don't -- this doesn't happen...

S. O'BRIEN: Maybe doing that is not such a good idea.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm going to be locking it from now on, I'll tell you this.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. That's what I would think.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, the battle over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. President Bush has been talking about Miers' religion, trying to fight off conservative critics. Is he adding to the controversy, though?

M. O'BRIEN: Also, a roadblock for Mayor Nagin's plan to bring tourists back to New Orleans. We'll tell you why he's running into a little bit of opposition on that gambling idea.

S. O'BRIEN: And Iraqis get ready to go back to the polls. Can a new referendum bring an end to the insurgency there? A look at that is ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, the next important milestone in Iraq, the new Iraq, is on Saturday, when the nation will vote on the referendum which will, either up or down, ratify or turn down the constitution, that new constitution that they've been working so hard on. There's been a recent compromise that is an attempt to try to get the Sunnis to participate more in this process. Big questions as to whether they will, whether they'll participate just to turn it down, maybe.

Anthony Shadid is the author of "Night Draws Near," a fascinating book about life in Iraq right now in post-invasion. A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the "Washington Post," he joins us once again.

Anthony, good to have you with us.

We have the sense here, I think, that this is a pivotal, huge moment on the streets, particularly the Sunni streets, that you've spent a lot of time in.

How big a deal is this constitution?

For that matter, how many people really know what's in the constitution?

ANTHONY SHADID, THE "WASHINGTON POST," AUTHOR, "NIGHT DRAWS NEAR": That's a good question, because I think there is a -- not many people that you talk to in Baghdad and even parts of the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad have actually read the constitution itself. In some of these Sunni villages north of Baghdad, places like Liliayah (ph) or Istaki (ph), it's remarkable, you know, that there is still a lot of opposition to the constitution, but that the process itself might be a backdrop, in a way, a sideshow to these larger forces that are still in play, the larger forces that we've seen over the past two years.

What I mean by that is occupation, insurgency, this hardening sectarianism.

And in conversations there in the past couple of days, I was struck by how many people thought the constitution would have very little impact on those larger forces. In other words, even if the constitution is approved or rejected, the insurgency will still remain. The fighting will still go on and it still looks like a distant prospect to incorporate Sunnis, in large part, into this political process.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, if that is the context, that is the back story, which leads us up to Saturday, will the Sunnis participate at all? Will they do what they did back in January, which is stay home? Or will they show up just simply to vote it down?

SHADID: Well, I think that's where we're going to see a remarkable shift. I think we are going to see a large turnout among Sunni Arabs in the referendum on Saturday. Now, in January, of course, Sunnis did boycott the vote, either because of threats, insurgent threats, or because of political principle. They refused the process.

This time around we are going to see them turn out in large numbers. There's a question of how they will vote Until this week, there was the expectation that they would almost entirely vote no. Divisions have emerged within the community over the past few days, with one party saying that Sunnis should approve the constitution now, given some last minute amendments made to the document.

But in conversation, like I said, over the past couple of days, you're not getting the sense that it's going to be a decisive shift. You still get the sense most people are going to vote no. There's kind of a disenchantment with the process itself. By voting no, that is almost a refusal of the constitution, of the process that led to the constitution; and, in a way, a sign of this lingering alienation of Sunnis from the political process.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, let's talk about this, you know, eleventh hour, if you will, compromise. One of the issues was de- Baathification; in other words, not every member of the Baath Party would be blackballed. That's Saddam Hussein's party. The other issue is that it allows kind of an escape valve, some wiggle room to change the constitution as time marches forward.

Is it enough, do you think, to get the Sunnis to buy in here?

SHADID: Right. Yes, it was enough for this one party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is one of the main Sunni parties. They said that these changes are enough for them to now support the constitution.

What I was hearing in conversations, though, is there was a sense that there might have been pressure exerted on the Iraqi Islamic Party to agree to the constitution, that this was pressure by the government here in Iraq and also by the United States government to bring about this kind of compromise.

There still is a lot of distrust. There's a sense that if changes are being promised ahead, why weren't the changes already done? In other words, why are we waiting for months ahead to make these changes? Why couldn't they have been done in the first place?

There's still a lot of suspicion about this, that the consti -- among Sunnis, at least -- that the constitution is the first step toward the partition of Iraq or the division of Iraq, a sense that it might divide into a Shiite south, a Kurdish north and then a center that's populated largely by Sunnis, but without oil and without other natural resources.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk briefly about the violence. An intercepted letter between -- I call them the killer Zs -- Zawahiri and Zarqawi. Zawahiri being Osama bin Laden's right hand man, Zarqawi the head of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Zawahiri writes to Zarqawi. He says: "Many of your Muslim admirers are wondering about your attacks on the Shia. The sharpness of this questioning increases when the attacks are on one of their mosques."

And his point there is to the insurgency, to al Qaeda in Iraq, you run the risk of a complete backlash.

I don't see much sign of a backlash.

Now, you've spent a lot of time in the Sunni communities.

Do you? SHADID: Well, there is a level of backlash. There actually is a degree of backlash. And Sunni Arabs will often make a distinction between attacks on U.S. troops, which they'll call legitimate resistance to the occupation, and attacks on civilians, the kind of bombings that you mentioned that Zarqawi has undertaken, most recently in the town of Balad, where 105 people were killed.

We were in Balad for the past couple of days and there is a -- the aftermath was very grim. It was one of the largest tolls in any bombing.

There is this kind of backlash, that this is hurting the image of the insurgency among its supporters, that it's making it more difficult to rally popular support for the fight against U.S. troops.

So I know you are seeing a degree of a backlash. But as opposed to Shiites who condemn the violence almost across-the-board, Sunni Arabs will make this distinction between what they consider legitimate resistance -- as I said, attacks on U.S. troops -- and then these, what they will call terrorist incidents, which is the killing of civilians en masse.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course, we've seen a lot of killing of those civilians.

Anthony Shadid, thanks for your time.

Always a pleasure.

Anthony is with the "Washington Post" and author of the book "Night Draws Near" -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has a plan to jump start tourism in New Orleans. It's already hit a snag, though. Is increasing gambling the answer? A look at that is ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, in Shreveport, Louisiana on Wednesday at a shelter, where he got an earful from an evacuee and business owner who had this to say about returning to New Orleans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to go home.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Well, we're going to...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to help the people of New Orleans.

NAGIN: We're going to get you home. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I can't do it if you're going to give us all these all pretense. We want everything legit and come to the table. It's people like us that's going to make the city flourish, not promises or false hopes.

NAGIN: That's what we're trying to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: The three minute exchange ended when the woman promised Nagin she'd return to New Orleans and become his worst nightmare.

Well, what could become Mayor Nagin's worst nightmare is actually the rebuilding efforts, that's going to rely heavily on bringing back tourism.

Stephen Perry is the head of tourism in New Orleans, join us this morning.

Nice to see you, Stephen.

Thanks.

STEPHEN PERRY, NEW ORLEANS VISITORS BUREAU: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Was the mayor's announcement about expanding gambling a surprise to you?

PERRY: It was very much of a surprise. We had just gotten a heads up on the staff that morning and frankly a lot of the reaction here was very, very mixed about it. And the political realities in Louisiana are such that it was very unlikely the proposal could even move forward.

S. O'BRIEN: So does expanding gambling seem like a good idea to you? I mean you're the guy in charge of the industry. You would know.

A good idea or not?

PERRY: Well, you know, we have two riverboats here and we have Harrah's land-based casino. And Harrah's has, frankly, been a fabulous corporate partner in New Orleans.

But Louisiana law establishes only one land-based casino. And Harrah's has exclusive rights to that and it will -- even if the legislature had passed an act under the Louisiana constitution, it couldn't have gone forward.

So a lot of people here didn't take that particular proposal as seriously because of the hurdles.

Now, the question of gaming as a mix in the economy here is one that's worthy of discussion on down the line. But it's certainly not a quick fix. S. O'BRIEN: Down the line.

Do you think it was the -- do you think the way it was announced by the mayor hurt the chances of that happening down the line?

PERRY: Soledad, I think even the mayor would agree that his announcement was premature. He hadn't really discussed it with a lot of the tourism officials or a lot of those of us in the industry. Because the reality is New Orleans is about leisure tourism, it's about families, it's about romantic couples and it's about one of the most powerful convention industries in the country.

That's the core to bringing New Orleans back and that starts around the first week of January.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, and the reality is, I would imagine, that you've got to bring people back -- the residents back in. And then you have the whole issue of rebuilding their homes. And then you've got FEMA and money and all these other priorities, it seems to me.

Am I wrong about that?

PERRY: No, you're absolutely right. And that's why the tourism industry is actually leading the economic recovery here. We have over 12,000 rooms online already. A month from now, we'll have 18,000 rooms and over 20,000 hotel rooms by the first of January.

The hotels have reached out to their workers and are providing up to 25 percent of their inventory to bring their workers home so they can keep jobs, stay in the hotel. We're working with the restaurant association now to create transportation networks for restaurant workers to be able to come in.

This next week, the lieutenant governor, Mitch Landrieu, and I, are leading a group of tourism people to go to Washington. We're going to be testifying before the House committee that has jurisdiction over FEMA. And we're talking about what it takes to bring recovery to this city. And it's one thing -- the cultural economy and tourism drive this city, a $5 billion to $8 billion industry here, Soledad; 85,000 people.

So for us, some marketing help and assistance and getting the convention center back open in April, and this city's economy is going to begin coming back very fast.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you think it's April when you're really going to be able to bring tourism back online?

PERRY: We actually are going to have tourism back online as early as January. Right now, we're expecting to have 85, 90 percent of the hotel inventory completely up in the first week of January. We're going to have Christmas celebrations. We're going to have New Year's Eve here.

But the real opening for this city is going to be around the week prior to February 28th, which is Mardi Gras, because this year the 150th anniversary of Mardi Gras. It's going to be a symbolic reaffirmation of this city's culture and its economics. And we expect to have an awful lot of people come help us reopen the city then.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, we're looking forward to that.

A final quick question for you, though. As you head to Washington, D.C. is it helpful for the mayor to hold press conferences like that, talking about something that's then shot down by the governor? Is that a problem for you, as you go meet with elected officials?

PERRY: Well, we would rather that all of us at these times get together and work these things out in advance. When you're in these kinds of situations, though, every elected official is trying to think out of the box and trying to do good things. And what we're going to all try to work on here is bringing all of us into a lot better lines of communication so the same message can be delivered at every level. And that's what we intend to start next week in Washington with the lieutenant governor.

S. O'BRIEN: Stephen Perry of the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Thanks.

PERRY: Thanks, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: A little bit of a sidestep there, but I think we got the message, didn't we?

S. O'BRIEN: We're working on the communications issues there.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, indeed.

Still to come, the president, well, they usually play down religion with Supreme Court nominees. You know, as your mother said, religion and politics are not good to discuss in public, but there you have it. It's certainly changed these days. The president is kind of bucking that with Harriet Miers. We'll look at whether all of that might backfire.

That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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