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American Morning

Katrina: One Year Later; Bush in New Orleans; Watching Tropical Storm Ernesto; Karr: No Charges

Aired August 29, 2006 - 07:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Trailer, house that no one's working on. House that's been gutted. A little bit of hope in this neighborhood. That is not the same case as you see all over the city of New Orleans of course.
If we can show you some of the videotape that we've been shooting as we've been going around Gentilly and other neighborhoods. In Gentilly specifically, 11,300 homes destroyed, 2,300 homes damaged. But you do see homeowners, like this guy here -- this is his house where we're in front of this morning -- who's really been working on this big giant project. And he's been out here every day trying to see if he can move forward. He's got a sign on his front yard too saying "I am rebuilding."

Let's take you to St. Bernard Parish now. Strangely enough, St. Bernard, which was really -- just took a massive wallop, same thing. Now it's rare. It is rare here, I'll tell you that. You've got one, two, maybe three homeowners on every block that would hold 20 homes or so, but some are coming back. Some are coming back with their kids. Some are putting their kids in the local schools as well. And so I think people feel that if other people see that, that will encourage more neighbors to come back to the neighborhood.

Lower Ninth, not the same thing. Let's see if we can show you some pictures from there. The Lower Ninth also hit hard because, of course, it's close proximation to the levees. They are doing some of the debris removal. Big criticism was that the debris was sitting there day after day after day in the Lower Ninth.

But where you see big slats, I mean sometimes they've just been grown over. So what you see is grassy lots. Not a big sense of what to do. What to do next. What's going to happen? How should you rebuild? Should you rebuild? Should you abandon your property?

We took a chopper tour as well to get a big picture sense of New Orleans and all the surrounding parishes as well. The estuary brown in many spaces. The estuary used to be green and thriving. Just dying.

And you can see obliteration and some rebuilding too. It is a mixed bag here. It's progress when you look at one location, and lack of progress when you look at another.

President Bush is also here. He's been meeting with some of the local leader on this one-year anniversary in New Orleans. And they've, obviously, been talking about the speed of the progress. Suzanne Malveaux this morning is in Warren Easton High School on Canal Street with more on that.

Hey, Suzanne, good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Soledad.

This is just one of the many schools that's going to become a charter school. It's opening in about a week or so. Really a sign of the times. But I have to say, many of the people who I talked to here in New Orleans, there is an overwhelming sense of disappointment in the president, that those promises he made in Jackson square two weeks after Katrina hit mostly have not been fulfilled.

President Bush, of course, his trip here to try to convince Americans that he is still committed to returning and bringing the Gulf Coast region, New Orleans, back. It was just last night he met with Governor Blanco, as well as Mayor Ray Nagin. He's also going to be having breakfast with Nagin.

What we expect to hear from the president at a prayer service later today, he is going to be talking about the progress made. The $110 billion in federal aid that has been allocated, but much of that yet to get to the residents who need it most. He is also, of course, going to be talking about those who lost their lives, those who rescued other people, the heroes.

And at the same time, he is going to emphasize the importance of local responsibility. He is not going to dwell on the administration's failures, but rather he is going to emphasize the long-term commitment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My message to the people down here is that we understand there's more work to be done. And just because there's a years passed, the federal government will remember the people. This is an anniversary, but it doesn't mean it's an end. Frankly, it's just the beginning of what is going to be a long recovery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Soledad, that really is the message from the president that we will hear today. Of course, the president trying to erase some of those images, the initial images devastating for his administration of one who was vacationing, who was in Crawford last year at this time, who was slow to respond. His administration, Air Force One, flying over the devastation. Taking quite a bit of time to actually get to the ground, to get to the people.

And, of course, there are several dozen House Democrats who are also here in New Orleans who want people to remember that kind of image because they say they believe it's an indication of an administration that is incompetent and insensitive.

Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Suzanne Malveaux on Canal Street this morning. Suzanne, thanks.

Let's get right back to Miles in New York. Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you very much, Soledad.

As we mark the one-year anniversary of Katrina making landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, there is another storm out there to watch. It's now a tropical storm. It's name is Ernesto. Chad Myers watching it.

Is it apt to become a hurricane once again today, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Sure could. I mean there's an awful lot of convection now to the north of the system. The system was over Cuba for a very long time, was torn up by the mountains down in southeast Cuba and now really -- you need to be -- the center needs to be, and most of it really, needs to be over water for the storm to get larger. So for a while it really did shrink in intensity.

It was a hurricane down south of Haiti, put down an awful lot of rainfall in Haiti as well. The storm now, the center, right about there. Cio Santa Maria (ph) is where the center of the storm is. But if you notice, that's not where the center of the convection is. So it wouldn't be out of the question, because this storm was so torn up for so long, for a new center to develop here under the main convection. That would shift dramatically, maybe by 20 or 30 miles, the projected landfall of the storm.

If the storm doesn't turn all to the right -- and I mean this thing could be all the way down to Marathon or Seven Mile Bridge and southward. The forecast is a little bit farther to the north than there, but notice, though, the cone is all the way from the west coast of Florida to the east coast of Florida and some of the computers, in fact five of them, take it over or through Key West and then back up through Punta Gorda, a lot like Charlie did but not with the intensity of a Charlie.

There's your rain showers from Albany back into New York today. We are going to see airport delays with the lower ceilings here and the rain will continue all across the deep south today and, obviously, into tomorrow. We'll keep watching Ernesto throughout the day.

Back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Chad Myers. A long day ahead. Long days ahead for you. Thank you very much.

Another strange turn in the JonBenet murder case. John Mark Karr confessed on TV to her killing, is now facing no murder charges in that case. His DNA was not a match. And so he is not linked to the 10-year-old murder, but he's not a free man this morning either. CNN's Susan Candiotti joining us now from Boulder, Colorado, with more.

Hello, Susan. SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

No, John Karr is not off the hook and neither is the Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy. She has her defenders and others are vilifying her for the way she went after John Mark Karr. Later today she will meet with reporters to try to explain. Here is part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI, (voice over): The newly unsealed arrest affidavit outlines months of e-mails and secretary taped phone calls between an clearly obsessed John Karr and Colorado journalism professor John Tracey.

JOHN MARK KARR, RAMSEY MURDER SUSPECT: Why should I write a book anyway? To exonerate her mother. It's a public confession. It's a public apology.

CANDIOTTI: On Christmas night, Karr claims he hid in the Ramsey's house while the family was out, carried the six-year-old beauty queen to the basement after everyone went to bed and in vivid detail describes an erotic sexual assault and brutal murder.

KARR: That's my little girl. I just want to shout to the world that she's -- that she's mine. I guess I just can't take it anymore.

CANDIOTTI: Even though law enforcement sources say some of the graphic information was previously undisclosed, most of Karr's claims include widely known details and turned out to be pure fantasy. In short, Karr's DNA did not match the DNA found on JonBenet Ramsey's underwear.

SETH TEMIN, PUBLIC DEFENDER: We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence.

CANDIOTTI: He's right. Authorities acted solely on Karr's gruesome and at times bizarre claims.

KARR: I loved JonBenet and she died accidentally.

CANDIOTTI: Investigators did not rely on scientific DNA samples taken in Thailand. The D.A. insisted secretly obtained samples from Karr's belongings would not have been good enough. Other DNA experts disagree.

DR. LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC EXPERT: I don't buy that they couldn't take surreptitious DNA. It's done many times here in the states. People get convicted on that basis. I don't buy it.

CANDIOTTI: Instead, the Boulder district attorney flew Karr from Thailand and took a DNA sample in Colorado. In a statement, Colorado's governor, Bill Owens, long a critic of the nearly 10-year long at times mistake riddled investigation, blasted the D.A.'s office. "I find it incredible that Boulder authorities wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars to bring Karr to Colorado given such a lack of evidence. Mary Lacy should be held accountable for the most extravagant and expensive DNA test in Colorado history."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: Free for about an hour, John Karr is now back in jail. He will have an extradition hearing. Authorities want him in California. And that hearing will take place later today on misdemeanor child pornography charges. He flew those charges some years ago.

Back to you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Susan, do we know, assuming he is extradited to California, is it likely he would face jail time on those misdemeanor charges?

CANDIOTTI: Well, that's a good question. He could. But even if he doesn't, if he at least is found guilty, authorities there say he can be labeled a sexual predator and that, at least, will be something. It might possibly be the only thing against him.

M. O'BRIEN: Susan Candiotti in Boulder, Colorado. Thank you very much.

Back to Soledad in New Orleans.

Good morning, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Miles, thanks. Good morning to you.

It was at this time a year ago that Hurricane Katrina was making landfall in Plaquemines Parish. They're holding a moment of silence to commemorate the massive losses there and all around the Gulf Coast, remembering when exactly Hurricane Katrina slammed into the region.

The question, of course, the $64,000 question -- this is picture of the moment of silence, I should point out. But the $64,000 question, Miles, is really, has there been progress or has there been no progress?

The answer to that question is, kind of depends on what you're look at, at the moment. We take a look at the lack of progress or the progress from above.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN, (voice over): The last time we did this flight, we were with Coast Guard rescuers and the water was up to porches in some neighborhoods. This time, Eric Cabel (ph) is our pilot and councilman Oliver Thomas is our tour guide. And the first thing we notice, of course, is that it's finally dry.

We start in Lake View, racially diverse. People here say they're tired of waiting for an official recovery plan. They're working on their own plan, getting the people who come back organized and motivated.

OLIVER THOMAS, NEW ORLEANS COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Let me say this. We don't have any problems that money can't solve.

S. O'BRIEN: In New Orleans east, affluent Eastover looks good, at least from above. Impressive multi-million-dollar homes, owned primarily by African-Americas. But just blocks away, no progress.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twelve or 15 feet of water here for two months.

S. O'BRIEN: We fly over Jazzland, the Six Flags theme park still standing but it's rusted and abandoned.

What's going on with it now?

THOMAS: Nothing. They abandoned it. They want to give it back to the city.

S. O'BRIEN: Damage to the marshland is obvious. Much of it's now under water. The Cyprus trees, which would help protect the city in the next tropical storm or hurricane, are gone or dying.

So this is St. Bernard Parish we're coming up on.

In St. Bernard Parish, the economy is gone. The fishing and shrimping industry, once successful and very lucrative, is now decimated. At the Lexington place subdivision, where the water hit with the force of a tsunami, homes are wiped off their slabs. Almost a year ago we walked on those bare foundations. Today, in the air, we found those houses.

THOMAS: That's not a subdivision. They came from the (INAUDIBLE) back here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They floated there. Whole homes.

S. O'BRIEN: So that's where these houses ended up.

They're in a marsh a half mile away. You can see the indecision in the real estate. Some homes look like the hurricane hit yesterday. Others are cleaned and gutted.

THOMAS: The Home Depots, Lowes, Wal-Marts, they're doing well.

Now you're in the Lower Ninth.

S. O'BRIEN: The Lower Ninth Ward is where Oliver Thomas grew up. He points out the repaired levee which the Army Corp of Engineers says is built to pre-Katrina levels. Like most New Orleanians, Thomas speaks bitterly about the levees.

THOMAS: And that was category nothing. S. O'BRIEN: In the Lower Ninth Ward, areas once dotted with homes are replaced by high grass. Some homeowners are happy the city's carted away the debris. At least they didn't have to pay for it. But there's no plan in this area and the future here seems so uncertain. Lots of people were renters. Many were poor and black and lack financial and political clout.

Then it's off to Plaquemines Parish, a swath of land that sits between the Gulf and the Mississippi River. Devastated by Katrina, then practically ignored by the media in the aftermath, people here are struggling. This was the brand new jail.

THOMAS: That was the jail.

S. O'BRIEN: You see pictures like this in Plaquemines Parish and you say, nothing's been done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

S. O'BRIEN: Back at Lakefront Airport, we fly over a plane that lies upside down on the runway. It's been sitting, just like that, for a year. The sign at the airport says it all.

Welcome to New Orleans. The building's kind of falling apart.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: We want to know what makes people really, really furious is something like this. This is a boat, probably used in rescues. A boat that's probably been sitting here for a year. A year. People would like to have these things cleaned up, moved on. They say we need to have progress. Things shouldn't look like this a year later.

Well ahead this morning, we're going to talk to Mayor Ray Nagin about this and other issues. What exactly is the plan for New Orleans? Why is it still a process and not a detailed plan. That and more questions for the mayor just ahead.

Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: And let's not forget the state next door, Mississippi. They took a terrible blow there. We'll check in and see how they're doing along the coast in that part of the world. Folks there are worried about a different kind of disaster on the horizon. We'll tell you about that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: The very powerful hurricane, category four, borderline category five, Katrina with very strong winds. A very potentially devastating situation.

MYERS: Many reports are coming in stating total structural failure in the New Orleans metro area, seek substantial cover now. UNIDENTIFIED MALE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This structure is coming apart as we speak. Look at all the debris down here. Look at that debris. Look at that. The entire thing is coming apart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: There are so many obstacles to New Orleans recovery. For example, the debris. It's all over the place. For example, the lack of utilities in many neighborhoods. For example, the money. Many homeowners say, where is it? One guy said to us, show me the money. Show me the money.

This morning we put all of those questions and much more to the city's mayor. Mayor Ray Nagin is at Cafe Dumon (ph) this morning.

Nice to see you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for talking with us.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's begin by talking about a plan. Why, literally one year after Hurricane Katrina, there's still no specific plan for rebuilding this city?

NAGIN: Well, that's been the spin out there. You know, let me take you back to, very quickly, 30 days after the event I put together a commission. We worked on a plan within 90 to 120 days. We had a plan that we put together. And the only piece that was left was the neighborhood process to get some bubbling up ideas. That process has been ongoing. It's going to finish this month. In all of the wet areas, and the dry areas are going to be finished by year-end. So we have a plan and we're implementing the plan as we speak.

S. O'BRIEN: With all due respect, sir, what you've describe is actually not a plan, that's a plan that's almost coming, but a year later really is not a plan. I mean, I've got to tell you, when I talk to homeowners not only here in Gentilly, but in the Lower Ninth, they say -- they ask me, what do you think's going to happen to the region? If homeowners there are asking me, that's an indication the information is not coming from your office or the governor's or frankly from the federal government, right?

NAGIN: Well, let's be frank. This is a very difficult situation where a city was totally knocked down, the economy was nonexistent for a number of months and we are struggling. It's a city of people that are struggling through their pain. So getting clear information out to everyone in the region is very, very difficult.

S. O'BRIEN: Well then let's talk about some clear information. Maybe specifically about the interview you gave with "60 Minutes." And many people have been talking about the referring to ground zero as a hole in the ground. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. First I want to ask you what you said about Trump International coming in, which you basically welcomed them with open arms. Where exactly do you see Trump International building here in New Orleans? NAGIN: Well, that's just one of the projects that we're working on. The Trump International towers is a project where we have some Florida developers that have taken a lead and they've identified a site and purchased some land on Poidrus (ph) Avenue, which is a major thoroughfare in the city of New Orleans. And that project has one final leg. It's a small piece of property they're acquiring. And they're ready to move forward.

S. O'BRIEN: There are people, certainly those who I spoke to in the Lower Ninth, who say, OK, there's a plan for Trump International. It's virtually ready to go. And yet here in the Lower Ninth there's no plan. They hear things about Trump International moving in and you have to understand -- I know you understand that they say, OK, we're primarily poor, we're primarily black, we lack a lot of political and economic clout, how do we know what's going to happen to our neighborhood? Can you stay the Lower Ninth's going to come back the way it was?

NAGIN: I've always said that. I've been saying that from the beginning. The big problem that I got into with some people with this so called we don't have a plan is because it's not their plan. And what they've been trying to get me to do is shrink the footprint of the city of New Orleans and basically say a community like the Lower Ninth Ward cannot come back. We have restored utilities to half of the neighborhood. The other half is in such disrepair that we're working on repairing that. And we will get it done.

The Lower Ninth Ward will come back. Our street grids are fine. And it's just a matter of getting the money to the people so that they can rebuild their homes.

S. O'BRIEN: You said in your "60 Minutes" interview, "you guys in New York City can't get a hole in the ground fixed." Do you feel that you sort of stuck your foot in your mouth with that comment?

NAGIN: Well, I don't know if I stuck my foot in my mouth. But basically that was not an appropriate description of that site. You know, New York and New Orleans has a very unique relationship. We sent people up and support up during 9/11 and they sent people down here to help us.

I was a little frustrated that day because I was getting a lot of criticism from the New York media in particular that, you know, after a year what are we doing? And I was trying to make the comparison to how difficult this is after five years, there's still a lot of work to be done at that site.

S. O'BRIEN: Back in September, when President Bush was in Jackson Square, you remember the big press conference he held. Here's what he said about going forward in New Orleans. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. That poverty has roots in the history of racial discrimination which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NAGIN: Do you feel that the president, the federal government, the administration, has confronted this problem with bold action as he said there? Are you happy with the leadership that the president's provided? Do you see bold action on the ground here?

NAGIN: Well, I think we're making progress. The resources are getting closer. We're going through many bureaucracies. The federal bureaucracies are now -- the money is at the state level. The dollars are there for us to move forward. We're just having a problem getting them quickly to the people that need it the most. And once that happens, we're going to see an economic revival that this nation has not seen in a long time.

S. O'BRIEN: That seems to be, at least from what people tell me on the street, that's the big problem. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin joining us this morning. It's nice to see you, sir. Thanks for talking with us. Appreciate it.

NAGIN: It's nice to see you. And thanks, America, for all your support.

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

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Soledad.

Coming up on the program, the tough decision to rebuild or move on in New Orleans. We'll go back to Gentilly, where Soledad is, and we'll meet a couple of urban pioneers. One of whom we used to call "boss."

And it's not easy living in many parts of New Orleans these days. A tank of gas, a cup of coffee, a box of nails often can require a long journey just to find them. Andy Serwer with a look at what's open and where next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: I was in New Orleans this past weekend and wanted to just get a little bit of water, Andy Serwer.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: That's all. Just some water. It was not easy. We had to drive several blocks outside of the Gentilly neighborhood where a lot of these businesses still have not opened. How are they doing there?

SERWER: Well, you know, it's spotty. As you and Soledad can both attest, it's been very difficult. It's sporadic. The Brookings Institution, Miles, has issued a lengthy report called Building a Better New Orleans, which basically provides us with an economic report card, a snapshot, of the city at this point. And it's, well, it's difficult sledding. Hotels have fared best. About 85 percent of the city's hotels are open at this point. Hospitals only 50 percent reopened.

Now some of these numbers you have to take with a grain of salt because, of course, the population has literally been halved. So you could argue, well, we don't need all the hospitals there. But, still, that's not a good sign.

Restaurants. And here's where we've been talking earlier this morning about small businesses and the troubles they have. Hotels usually part of big national chains. They've got money. Restaurants, very local businesses. They don't have the money to go forward.

And look at that last one there, Miles. Schools. Only 29 percent of the city's schools are open. Now, of course, again, the population is halved. Maybe they don't need the same number of schools. And the whole school system there, by the way, going through a complete revamping. Charter schools taking up the slack in a huge, huge way.

M. O'BRIEN: It was a troubled school system before.

SERWER: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: But I think disproportionate numbers of people with children are staying back and not going in. It could be a chicken and egg kind of thing with the schools.

SERWER: I think that's right. And when you look at another category that's interesting to me as well, homes. The number of homes for sale has jumped dramatically. That would suggest there are no buyers. Of course, that also reflects a national trend because, you know, the housing market has slowed.

Now here's an interesting one though. Rents are up 50 percent in the city. That's because people need this type of temporary housing or sort of shorter term housing, I guess you could say.

M. O'BRIEN: There is a housing shortage there. That's the irony. With all these -- you would think that there would be a way to answer that demand more easily. It's not simple, though, is it?

SERWER: What about FEMA trailers?

M. O'BRIEN: There's plenty of those. You want to rent a FEMA trailer, you can get one of those.

SERWER: Let's not even go there.

M. O'BRIEN: We can hook you up on that.

SERWER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: Thanks, Miles. M. O'BRIEN: We'll see you in a little bit.

Coming up, the long road back in St. Bernard Parish. No place was hit harder by Katrina, by mother nature and by a lack of help from the outside. So how are they doing now there?

And we haven't forgotten Mississippi, folks. Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, they are worried about a different kind of disaster there. We're going to explain that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning. I'm Miles O'Brien.

S. O'BRIEN: And I'm Soledad O'Brien. We're coming to you live this morning from New Orleans on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Miles, you'll remember of course, that we spent a lot of time a year ago in St. Bernard Parish. Utterly devastated. It was so bad that people said, that's it, we will never, ever be able to come back home. Well, in that year, the economy is still in ruins, people are furious at the levee system, people are furious with their insurance companies that say, oh, that's not flood damage -- that's flood damage and you're not insured for flood damage. People are angry.

But the biggest obstacle for that community might just be all the indecision. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN (on camera): So essentially, attracting people back to the parish is going to involve a number of things. I mean, look at a house like this where you have to fight through weeds to get back in. This looks pretty much like it did after the storm. If you take a peek through their windows, you can see virtually, well, nothing's been done. It's still a complete mess. What message does that send to the people here who come back who want to clean up, who want to fix up their homes, like the next door neighbor who clearly is mowing the lawn, gutting the house, trying to make a little progress?

I mean, let's take a look inside here, and you can see that they had someone professionally come and do cleaning and so soda blasting, and they're trying to get somewhere with this property, trying to make progress.

Then you look at the neighbor's house. Nothing's done. And after that, nothing's done. After that, nothing's done. So, you know, 10-foot weeds.

And then you look across the street. I mean, is this pile of garbage progress? Someone is clearly gutting the house, but it doesn't actually -- or it doesn't exactly send a message to people who are trying to decide if they should come back or not to rebuild, to invest in their community, and that is one of the problems they are trying to fix here in this parish.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: It's not only here in New Orleans where recovery is moving at a snail's pace, it actually is happening all along the Gulf Coast. I want to take you to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where they are concerned that there's going to be another disaster.

Let's get right Kathleen Koch this morning.

Hey, Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Well, you know, it was a year ago that I was covering Katrina from Mobile, while my hometown here, Bay St. Louis, was being lashed by 125-mile-an-hour winds, a 30-foot storm surge. No levees here -- this was just the brute force of Mother Nature that destroyed my town.

As you can see behind me, much hasn't come back. There has been progress, but this is the headline in the local paper here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast today, that we are survivors, and they are surviving, and in places they're thriving, but people say this has,. without a doubt, been the longest year of their lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH (voice-over): Twelve months of back-breaking labor, thousands of volunteers and sheer determination. It's brought parts of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi back to something close to normal. This was Monty and Daniel Strong's home after Katrina. They and their three children shared a FEMA trailer while rebuilding. With hurricane season still under way, they wonder whether they did the right thing.

DANIELLE STRONG, RESIDENT: This is scary. It's scary all around. You'd have get back to this point and then, you know, find out that you should have sold your house or you should have left.

OK, you're going to have to staple.

KOCH: They also realize they have even less protection now should another hurricane strike.

MONTE STRONG, RESIDENT: All the beachfront homes, and businesses and trees and all that stuff, all that stuff's gone, so there's nothing to stop the water now.

Most of the debris is gone, but many destroyed buildings aren't. So children go to school in portable trailers in plain sight of their gutted classrooms.

FRANCES WEILER, PRINCIPAL, NORTH BAY ELEMENTARY: It's a constant daily reminder of what we've lost. Just like driving our streets of our community is a constant daily reminder of what we've lost.

KOCH: To make matters worse, insurance rates are going up. State wind coverage went up 90 percent. David Treutel, who sells insurance, lost his home and business, and worries that many won't be able to afford the increases.

DAVID TREUTEL, INSURANCE AGENT: These aren't the wealthy people, these aren't the condominium dwellers. These are the mom and pops. These are the teachers. They just don't have the ability.

KOCH: With one quarter of the people gone, half the businesses closed, tax revenues have plummeted, Bay St. Louis is struggling to pay its workers and provide basic services.

MYR. EDDIE FAVRE, BAY ST. LOUIS: We're expecting or projecting that late September, early October, unless something happens, we'll be broke, out of money. We'll be out of money. After that, we don't know what we're going to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOCH: Luckily, though, something has finally happened. At the 11th hour, the state legislature only yesterday passed a grant program that will give cities, small, struggling cities like Bay St. Louis, up and down the Mississippi Gulf Coast, grants of up to $3 million. And, Soledad, that will keep them going at least a year, help them stay on their feet. We'll have to see what happens after that.

S. O'BRIEN: Kathleen, I think it's hard for people to understand, though, you hear numbers like $3 million, you hear numbers like $110 billion which is what's promised for the region from the feds, and you say, so then why do we not see it on the ground here in the Gulf Coast?

KOCH: Well, you know, here, the money hasn't gotten here. Again, they passed that grant program last night, so the cities will eventually start getting the money.

It was back in December that Congress said, oh, here's all of this money to help people in the Gulf Coast rebuild, but these were community-development block grants. People are hoping that finally in the next couple of days checks will start arriving in homeowners' hands. It has just been such a long and slow process. And, Soledad, you've covered a lot of the insurance issues as well, and that's one of the big problems here as well that people are struggling with; they can't rebuild if they don't get those checks from their insurance companies for what many people believe was clear, outright provable wind damage, and the insurance companies are just ignoring saying no, it's water, the federal government and the taxpayers have to pick up the tab. Very frustrating.

S. O'BRIEN: And it's making people furious, really. Kathleen Koch for us in Bay St. Louis. Thanks, Kathleen.

People here in the last couple days were very concerned when they heard about Tropical Storm Ernesto making his way to the Gulf. I mean, the responses range from out-and-out panic to people who said, I'm going to ignore it, denial, until I need to worry about it. And other people said, if in fact a big storm, whether it's Ernesto or something else, if a big storm hits, it is going to set back the recovery -- which is going so slowly already -- it's going to set it back further.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: It is back to square one in the 10-year-old mystery of who killed 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. John Mark Karr, an odd drifter, who confessed on our air to killing her, is not the answer to riddle after all. So what's next for Karr? What's next for the Ramsey murder case? What's next for the D.A.'s office? So many questions this morning. Our senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, as always, filled with answers for us.

Jeff, good to have you with us.

JEFFREY CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, sir.

M. O'BRIEN: First of all, you have the actual affidavit that led to his arrest. You had a chance to look at it. If you were a judge, would you have said, go arrest that man?

TOOBIN: It's a tough call. You know, it's really an extraordinary document. It's 98 pages, single-spaced, and almost the whole thing is the text of Karr's e-mails to Michael Tracey, the journalism professor and summaries of his phone calls with Tracey. Very disturbing stuff in here. Extensive detailed confessions to the crime, statements that he likes having sex with young girls, I mean, very appalling stuff.

But no corroboration with any physical evidence and nothing in here that he couldn't have gotten out of the newspaper. So, you know, and many things that indicate that this guy was seriously unhinged.

M. O'BRIEN: So sick e-mails do not a murder case make. It seems to me one course of action for the district attorney's office would have been to quietly come up with a way of surreptiously, or otherwise, getting a DNA sample of this guy before ever bringing this to light.

TOOBIN: I think one explanation that the D.A.'s office offered in Mary Lacy's press conference two weeks ago was that, well, we had to protect the children of Thailand, because he was teaching, he was teaching kids there. And I think that explanation washes, because what they should have done, it seems, is go to the Thai authorities, say arrest this guy, get him away from your kids, get a DNA test so we can confirm whether he's our guy, and then pursue him, rather than just go through this enormously expensive, disruptive arrest of him and in this, you know, trip across the ocean.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I don't know if anybody's tallied it up yet, but there's a tremendous expense here. This is not to minimize the fact that he does face misdemeanor child pornography charges in California. He's facing an extradition hearing on that. These charges will not put him in jail, but they might put him on a watchlist. TOOBIN: Well, they will put him in jail for as long as a year, but he's already served some time. I mean, it's hard for me to imagine he can serve much more time on those misdemeanor charges.

But yes, he will be only some watchlists, he'll have to register with the police the he is convicted or pleads guilty. But that's a good thing, he should, because he's obviously a very twisted guy; he just didn't happen to kill JonBenet Ramsey.

M. O'BRIEN: I think any parent out there would agree with that. Let me offer -- it might be on some people minds. I just want to ask you, he made those admissions for whatever reason. I don't know if we can get in his mind and figure out why. Maybe he wanted a free ticket home. I don't know. But the fact is, I suppose you could make a case for filing a false report.

TOOBIN: Well, you couldn't, I don't think, because the false statements he made to investigators were in Bangkok, not in Boulder. And the boulder d.a. Doesn't have jurisdiction over false statements made in Bangkok, Thailand.

M. O'BRIEN: Even if their broadcast all around the world?

TOOBIN: Even if their broadcasts all around the world. You don't -- there's no cable news jurisdiction. So he didn't commit any crime in Boulder. So there's nothing they could do about it. I think he's -- weird, strange, perverse but not illegal.

M. O'BRIEN: And these days a lie gets a lot more than halfway around the world.

TOOBIN: This one got very far.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, all right. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks a lot.

TOOBIN: There'll be a press conference at noon, Boulder time, where Mary Lacy and company will try to explain what their thinking was, you know, and it wasn't crazy what they did. It's just that I think they didn't pursue it...

M. O'BRIEN: There will be tough questions.

TOOBIN: And you will be there, I'm sure.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

TOOBIN: And we will be there live, of course, on CNN. Thank you.

Still to come on the program, to rebuild or to move on: We'll look at the tough choice for Gulf Coast residents one year after Katrina or K-plus one.

Also ahead, building codes, revolutionized by Katrina. We'll look at the changes that could save a lot of money and heartache in the future. Plus a look back at Katrina with the man who led FEMA's botched response. Former director Mike Brown joining us live.

Stay with us for more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: For many of those affected by Katrina, even a year later, the question remains what to do now? Many still in limbo. For some, it's a decision to leave. For others, to return, rebuild. Others are just kind of cleaning up, hedging their bets, waiting to see if there will be some sort of plan. And in the absence of that plan, individuals are having to make in some cases courageous decisions to rebuild in spite of what is a very grim scene around them. One of the people who has made that decision recently is our former boss, CNN executive producer Kim Bondy, how you met in a different way in the course of the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN (on camera): Last time we were here was when?

KIM BONDY, CNN EXEC. PROD.: Earlier in the summer.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

BONDY: So it's been a couple months.

M. O'BRIEN: It's been stripped down. My gosh. Oh, my gosh.

(voice-over): One year later, the city of New Orleans is a lot like Kim Bondy's house, plenty of charm and character, still standing, but with a stubborn, empty feeling inside.

M. O'BRIEN: This is the kitchen?

BONDY: That was the kitchen.

M. O'BRIEN: This was her dream house. Born and raised in New Orleans, she planned to retire here. From the moment that Katrina hit, she agonized over what to do, rebuild, tear down, or just walk away.

(on camera): So what's the deal with this? Are you selling or not?

BONDY: I said that I was going to give myself a year. And it's been a year, and I just think it's time to make a decision and you know, so I've made one, and I don't want to give my house away.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): She sees herself as an urban pioneer.

BONDY: You know, when I put a brand new, shiny roof on and put some walls up, and make it feel like a home again, and there's beautiful landscaping, maybe it will be a model for what's possible, you know, in this solidly middle-class neighborhood. M. O'BRIEN: Her neighborhood, Gentilly, middle class, racially mixed, about five miles from the French Quarter, has been slow to rebound. There are more gutted shells, and "for sale" signs than FEMA trailers and determined, courageous soles like Lee Torregano.

LEON TORREGANO, REBUILDING FLOOD-RAVAGED HOME: I hate to say it because I'm a grown man, but I actually cry when I walk through here. It's something like something just shake me and say, look, it's just not just here, it's just everywhere, if you look everywhere. It ain't just for me, I'm crying for everybody around here.

M. O'BRIEN: Now his little patch of green, edged to perfection and dotted with hibiscus, is truly an oasis in the debris.

TORREGANO: If I don't stay busy, I go to thinking. That's another thing keeps my morale and keeps me moving around.

M. O'BRIEN: And even though he's still waiting for insurance money and his house is still a wreck, he is determined not to leave his little piece of New Orleans.

TORREGANO: If I do this and see other people do this, that get around, and then everybody is going to get doing it. You start it off and then everybody starts saying the same thing.

M. O'BRIEN: Kim's brother and next door neighbor, Blayne, is scared to bring his two young children back here. He and his wife now have a home in San Antonio, and he commutes every week, working as a contractor, helping others rebuild.

(on camera): If you could come back, would you?

BLAYNE BONDY, HOUSE DESTROYED BY KATRINA: If I saw some real direction, if I saw a plan and some real activity moving the city in the right direction. The most important thing is that I would have to be able to bring my kids back here and feel that they were safe.

M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): On this sunny Saturday morning, we didn't see a single child, or a grandparent for that matter. People who return here will likely be younger and richer, at least for now.

(on camera): Will it be New Orleans?

BONDY: You know, that's the thing that's so hard for me, because I get choked up when I think about what New Orleans is, and it's the people. And I think, you know, a lot of the spirit of the city is broken, but you know, people from New Orleans, are very resilient, so I think that over time they will come back, but I don't think it will ever be the same.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: A lot of individuals having to make a lot of tough decisions. There was no overarching plan, no real big decisions made by the city or the state on what parts of the city will survive and what parts may not. They're having to make decisions on their own. And as a result, a year later, that is slowing down any progress that you see in the city of New Orleans.

Up next, Andy, "Minding Your Business." Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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M. O'BRIEN: Top stories after a short break. Stay with us.

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