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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Hurricane Ophelia Potentially Headed For Land; Baton Rouge Sets Up Schools For Young Refugees

Aired September 09, 2005 - 22:00   ET

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

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
Our coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continues here in New York on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."

In Louisiana, the story in large part has become a tale of two cities. In New Orleans, the focus remains on looking for the dead and convincing the living to leave, all the while draining a drowned city.

And, in Baton Rouge, about 70 miles to the northwest, it's about facing a new way of life.

Anderson Cooper joins us tonight from Baton Rouge and will be with the whole night -- Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, thanks very much.

Yes, facing a new way of life. We're at a shelter here right now by the Red Cross. It's a very well-organized shelter. It is air- conditioned. There are about 4,500 people there. Obviously, they would like to be elsewhere. They would like to be home. But, as shelters go, it's not too bad a place to be.

Baton Rouge has become the state's largest city almost overnight, an accidental boomtown believed to have doubled its population in just over a week. It's now home, at least a temporary home, to an estimated quarter-of-a-million storm evacuees. There are long lines in stores. There are long lines for gas. There are long lines on the highway. You name it, long lines are now the norm in what used to be a very sleepy state capital.

This is also the beginning of the school year, and that has complicated everything. Later in the program, I will talk to the superintendent of schools here in Baton Rouge about the challenge they're facing. And it is a great challenge, indeed, Aaron.

BROWN: Anderson, thank you. We look forward to that.

First, quickly, an overview of the day. Now, almost two full weeks after Katrina, 11 days after Katrina turned hundreds of thousands into refugees, the story has shifted for the most part from rescue to recovery, a recovery unfolding in fits and starts.

Today, FEMA said it's scrapping its program to distribute debit cards worth up to $2,000 to the victims of the hurricane. The effort will end after officials finish distributing cards this weekend at shelters in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. From the outset, there was confusion about who would get the cards, who was eligible, how much they would be worth.

One hundred members of the Louisiana National Guard returned home today. They came back from Iraq. Over the next two weeks, a total of 3,000 Louisiana Guards men and women will return.

And, today, the mayor of New Orleans urged his citizens in the strongest of terms again to stay out of the city because of health safety concerns. Anyone who attempts to enter the area, he said, is risking illness and infection.

In New Orleans, tonight, 60 percent of the city remains flooded. And, in places, the water remains up to the rooftops. But there is also this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The week ends with a reminder, thankfully, that often our worst fears are not realized.

TERRY EBERT, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: There's some encouragement in what we found in the initial sweeps that some of the catastrophic death that some people predicted may not in fact have occurred.

BROWN: After a house-to-house search looking for the living and the dead, authorities in New Orleans, at least, say the death toll will be far lower than the 10,000 officials say they feared. This is often true in such disasters, but, whatever the number, it is sorrowful and still unknown.

That's the word on the real victims of the storm tonight. But today claimed a different sort of victim as well. Mike Brown, the FEMA head, was relieved of his duties in New Orleans today, a victim of perceived failures, inexperience, resume padding, and generally horrible reviews.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge. I appreciate his work, as does everybody here.

BROWN: That's how it sounds when you get fired in Washington. As for what how Mr. Brown may think of it all, we do not know. He wasn't allowed to answer questions.

CHERTOFF: Here are the ground rules: I'm going to answer the questions. I've explained what we're doing. I thought I was about as clear as I possibly could be in English as to what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Next question.

BROWN: Brown is replaced by the number three men in the Coast Guard, Vice Admiral Thad Allen. While Allen's resume shows no direct experience in complex disaster relief operations, it does show a man with an extensive background in managing large and complex problems. He's surely faced with one of those tonight, and took charge with the confidence of a ship captain.

VICE ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN, U.S. COAST GUARD: I'm going to hold an all-hands meeting with everybody in this building. And we will have an open and frank conversation on the way forward and we will move out.

BROWN: As water continues to be pumped from New Orleans, the city continues to urge the stragglers and the stubborn to leave. But, as a matter of policy, no one is yet being forced to leave. Told to leave, yes. Dragged out, no.

SHERRY LANDRY, CITY ATTORNEY, NEW ORLEANS: Our officers and troops continue to strongly encourage, strongly encourage, those folks in this city that are not associated with the recovery effort to leave for their safety and for the safety of our officers, troops, and contractors.

BROWN: And while some comply, others, rather pointedly, refuse.

ASHTON O'DWYER, RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS: I will leave when I'm dead. OK? Let them be warned, they come to my house, they try to evict me, they try to take my guns, there will be gunfire.

BROWN: Mr. O'Dwyer, a lawyer in New Orleans, said he'd had just about enough of the threats of forced evacuation.

O'DWYER: Treat me with benign neglect. Get out of my neighborhood. Get out of my life. Get out of my (EXPLETIVE DELETED) city.

BROWN: He was eventually arrested in what the cops and everyone hopes will not be a replay when and if force is eventually employed.

A week after National Guard arrived at the Convention Center to find fear, hunger and squalor that was almost indescribable, the police chief said that, while conditions there were horrible, some of the worst accusations, rapes and child murders, remain only that, unsubstantiated rumor.

EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have swept the entire Convention Center. There are no children found dead. And we have no confirmed reports of any type of sexual assaults.

BROWN: They opened a post office today in the Astrodome in Houston, evacuees getting mail for the first time. Included in the mail, some government checks, officials saying the government has paid $460 million to more than 200,000 people since the disaster.

But the people in the Astrodome, apparently, will be the last to get government-issued debit cards, FEMA saying the distribution, while a fine idea, proved just too hard, too complicated to continue at every shelter around the country.

And, finally, some sailors from the Mexican navy arrived today. Mexico is one of many countries which has offered help. And there was this scene, too, troops in the Louisiana National Guard who have been on duty in Iraq returned from one kind of war zone, only to land in another. They will have some time to see what Katrina did to their own family lives, and then back to this battle of New Orleans, not Iraq, to be sure, but not the home they left behind.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: But the lead tonight remains Mike Brown, the director of FEMA, who was taken off the front lines of the relief effort today, leaving everyone wondering if his resignation is far behind.

Fair or not, Mr. Brown gets the blame for the manmade disaster that Katrina morphed into after the storm itself ended. Many have been calling for his head.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michael Brown's fate was practically sealed Wednesday morning. In a private meeting at the White House, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the president he wanted to remove Brown from the front lines of the disaster.

"I trust you as the head of Homeland Security," the president told Chertoff, "and I support the decisions that you make." With that, Chertoff flew back to the Gulf Coast. Thursday, as he toured the region with the vice president, he told Mr. Cheney what he wanted to do. That day, the vice president got an earful about Brown from state and local officials, including some Republicans.

They were worried, not just about Brown's leadership in the immediate aftermath, but about his ability to lead current and future efforts. That night, Chertoff called White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to say he was pulling Brown from the disaster zone and sending him back to Washington.

(on camera): So, will Brown ultimately be fired? That's not this administration's style. President Bush made it clear to Secretary Chertoff he holds him responsible. And the president's green light to remove Brown from Hurricane Katrina duty is a sign that, so far, the results are not acceptable.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Congress has now approved $62 billion -- $62 billion -- in federal aid to help the victims of Katrina, an amount so large, it defies understanding without context. So, some context; $62 billion would more than cover the annual budgets next year of the Commerce Department and the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission and NASA combined. The Department of Education will get $56 billion in its budget next year. On the other hand, the Department of Defense gets $419 billion. Homeland Security, by comparison, just $34 billion for the whole country the whole year. The Army Corps of Engineers, $4 billion. NASA, $16.5 billion.

The White House has said it will ask for more money for the recovery efforts, that $62 billion is just the beginning. The president said yesterday that tax increases will not be necessary or helpful to pay for all the spending.

We sometimes are accused, fairly or not, of telling stories as if they're just one-act plays. We tell you of a displaced family, their lives in ruin, hopeless and helpless. And we move on to some other story, some other family's tragedy. Tonight, we tell you a second act, the Rome family, who we met the other night, though, no doubt, to them, it was a lifetime ago.

Once again, their story is reported by David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RONALD ROME, SURVIVOR: I worked 22 hours straight, had no sleep. I'm about to gag.

JUDY ROME, SURVIVOR: Oh, daddy, it's all right.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After escaping through the toxic floodwaters of St. Bernard Parish, Ronald Rome (ph) and his family were falling apart in front of my eyes. The adults were emotional wrecks. The children stopped talking and would barely eat. But what we couldn't know as we parted ways was how badly this tightly-knit family was about to be pushed to their limits again.

(on camera): You're smiling. I can't believe that. Look at you.

J. ROME: Look a lot better than we did before.

(CROSSTALK)

R. ROME: We have a reason to smile now.

J. ROME: Yes.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Five days later, I found both Ronald and Judy Rome through the Red Cross family registry at a relative's house in Houston. But I quickly discovered that, while rested and showered and clearly relieved...

R. ROME: God, this is so good.

QUIJANO: ... the family that had faced the floodwater together had broken apart during a humanitarian effort that, at times, seemed anything but humane. Already physically and emotionally exhausted, the Romes had to stand in line for a flight at the chaotic and filthy New Orleans Airport for 16 hours.

R. ROME: Sixteen hours on our feet, except for the three times I hit the floor.

MATTINGLY: You passed out?

R. ROME: I passed out three times.

MATTINGLY: And this is when the family began to fragment. A daughter and son-in-law, told they could not fly with their dogs, had to be bused to Oklahoma. The rest flew to San Antonio, where they rented a car and drove to join relatives in Houston, where the children were examined for post-traumatic stress.

J. ROME: We actually had to take the two children and take a piece of clothing and tie their arms together and tie them to us because the people were shoving and pushing so hard to try to protect them.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Among the two youngest, 18-month-old Nathaniel (ph) now has bruises on his face after throwing himself on the floor in a violent temper tantrum. The two older children, 5-year-old Jeremy (ph) and 7-year-old Taylor (ph), were picked up by grandparents from West Virginia, so they could be in a stable, familiar environment.

And yet, through it all, the Romes say their strongest memories are of overwhelming kindness, beginning at a church shelter in San Antonio.

R. ROME: I can't say enough. A million thank yous. I love them.

J. ROME: Yes. They were wonderful, wonderful people.

(CROSSTALK)

R. ROME: They just gave so much.

MATTINGLY: And the kindness continues. After seeing the plight of the Romes, viewers contacted us, offering them a place to live.

(on camera): People started contacting us, wanting to offer you a place to live for as long as you needed to.

R. ROME: Don't do this.

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But, while grateful, the Romes plan to return to Louisiana, where they hope to eventually find jobs and a house where they can one day reunite well out of harm's way. David Mattingly, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The second act to the Rome story.

Anderson, we're reminded often in these things that not only have people gone through an almost unimaginable experience, but that human beings, for all of that, are remarkably resilient. And, if you can give them some peace and quiet, a little food to eat, some water and a shower and a place to live, they'll put their lives together.

COOPER: Yes. That's absolutely true. And we're seeing that every day in just about every community we're going to here in Baton Rouge and in New Orleans and all over this devastated region. People are very resilient, indeed.

One thing that people don't want to hear, however, is that, out in the Atlantic, there is another storm. Ophelia, it is keeping us all still guessing. Right now, she's a Category 1 hurricane, the least powerful. She could make landfall, though, late Monday or early Tuesday.

Rob Marciano is tracking the storm from the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta.

Rob, what's the latest?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Anderson, a hurricane, as you mentioned.

The rain bands from this thing have shifted offshore. So, it has moved somewhat away the coastline. And that's good news for folks who have been beaten up by this in Florida and in the Georgia waters as well, dangerous riptides and high surf in this. But you can't even see the eye of this hurricane on the radar. That's how far out it is.

Satellite picture, you can kind of see it. But it's not very well defined. As a matter of fact, the last couple of frames of this, looks like it's weakening. And I checked some of the air recon data, the airplane flying in there about an hour-and-a-half ago. And the flight level winds are not as impressive as they were earlier this afternoon.

So, it's possible that they may knock it down again to a tropical storm. But that's neither here, nor there, because the forecast is for it to turn around, winds 75 at last check, northeast winds at seven -- or moving to the northeast at seven miles an hour.

But here's the forecast track of the National Hurricane Center, a continued drift towards the northeast tomorrow, remaining a hurricane, and maybe even strengthening somewhat. But look at this curve back towards the U.S. There's an area of high pressure that is sitting up here and that's going to block it from moving out to see. And now we have a pretty wide area of concern that we're dealing with. Anywhere from the Georgia-Florida line, all the way up to Cape Hatteras is where folks should be keeping a close eye on this.

But right now, the forecast track is for it to come somewhere in this area near Charleston, South Carolina, by Monday afternoon, possibly a strong Category 1 hurricane, so, watching that potential very closely. We should have another update from the National Hurricane Center in about 45 minutes, Anderson. And we will talk to you then.

COOPER: Rob, thanks very much.

Let's go back to Aaron in New York -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, Anderson, thank you.

Coming up on the program tonight, on a Friday, drowned and destroyed by the hurricane, the towns are gone. Has a way of life disappeared with them?

But, first, just about a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other stories that made news today, a busy Friday. Erica Hill is in Atlanta.

Good evening, Ms. Hill.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you. It was a busy Friday, one of those days where you would say, Aaron, that there are plenty of headlines tonight.

BROWN: Yes.

HILL: A federal appeals court has ruled, the president does have the powers to detain Jose Padilla without charges. Padilla is a U.S. citizen suspected of plotting with al Qaeda to set off a dirty bomb. He's been held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig in South Carolina for three years.

The White House has disinvited Lebanon's president, Emile Lahoud, to a party for heads of state. A Bush administration official said excessive and illegitimate Syrian interference in Lebanese politics was the reason for that. President Bush is hosting the party in New York next week during the United Nations General Assembly.

Iraq's leader says American troops could leave in two years if Iraqi forces can gain control of the country's cities and highways. President Jalal Talabani later qualified his statement by saying Iraq would continue to need a small U.S. troops presence. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he wouldn't discuss withdrawals until the new constitution and government were in place.

Former U.S. hostage Roy Hallums is on his way home from Iraq. The 57-year-old businessman was rescued on Wednesday from a farmhouse near Baghdad. He was held by kidnappers for 11 months. He's asked that he be given some time to adjust to his freedom before engaging with the press.

And you can't blame him for that one, Aaron. BROWN: Well, the nerve of him. He looks pretty good. The...

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: For 11 months, he does.

BROWN: Yes. I mean, he's obviously a lot thinner, but he actually looked pretty good.

You know what? In a week where we dealt with a lot of misery, that's a great story that probably didn't get enough attention. And he'll be glad to get home and we are glad to have with home. Thank you.

HILL: Absolutely.

BROWN: See you in a half-an-hour.

Much more ahead on this two-hour edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency," beginning with an unlikely hero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came out that door right there.

BROWN (voice-over): Katrina gave him a chance to escape from jail. Instead, he stayed behind to help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Them women were really screaming. I mean, like you say, you just couldn't tell where it was coming from. And it was just -- it was just a heart-wrenching help.

BROWN: Now the sheriff's office says he should go free.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it got down to it, as you know, Steve didn't think about anything but other people, maybe for the first time in his life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the first new shirt I have had -- you know, worn in about a week.

BROWN: Starting over in Memphis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to go look at your place?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come here, Stark (ph). It's OK. It's only temporary.

BROWN: Starting over for now, but not forever. New Orleans is still waiting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as they give us the green light, I'm back in the city.

BROWN: The town he called home is now a ghost town, empty, shattered. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's real sad for me.

BROWN: But he's not giving up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make it all right. And (INAUDIBLE) (ph) We're going to do it right. We will make it better this time.

BROWN: Across the Gulf Coast, the long road to recovery.

From the Gulf and from New York, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, thousands of schoolchildren are among the evacuees that have doubled the population of Baton Rouge. Imagine that. The population of Baton Rouge has doubled in about a week. So far, about 5,300 have registered for school. And authorities are going from shelter to shelter trying to encourage every child to register.

For a report card tonight on how the school system is handling the population boom, we are joined by Charlotte Placide, Baton Rouge superintendent of schools.

Thanks very much for being with us.

CHARLOTTE PLACIDE, BATON ROUGE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS: Thanks for having me.

COOPER: Your background is as a CEO in business.

PLACIDE: Yes.

COOPER: That's exactly what you need right now.

PLACIDE: Yes. Right now, you need to have some business sense, with logistics to an organizational -- organizational skills have been real key these last two weeks.

COOPER: I mean, I look at this shelter. There are 4,500 people in here right now. There are a lot of kids of all ages running around. How do you get them to school on Monday?

PLACIDE: Well, we're going to bring four buses to this shelter. And we are going to do the first day. It will be considered orientation for the parents and the children. We're going to take the parents and the children to one school site for K-12. And we are going to take a high school -- I mean from K-8, we are going to take them to one site. And then 9-12, we are going to take them to another site.

COOPER: But -- so, you have got these guys covered. It's the kids who are spread out in homes across this entire region.

PLACIDE: Yes.

COOPER: How do you get them all to a central school? PLACIDE: Well, those won't necessarily all go to a central school. They'll go to the school closest to where their address is or they're living. And so, they will go to different schools. The ones in two of our shelters will go to one particular school, where we have opened up just particular -- just since we have had this greatest...

COOPER: Influx.

PLACIDE: ... influx of students.

COOPER: And your greatest problem right now, I mean, I would have thought it was teachers. But the teachers isn't the problem. What is it?

(CROSSTALK)

PLACIDE: We have lots of teachers. We need bus drivers. We do not have enough bus drivers to even drive the buses we have been able to have come into us. And...

COOPER: You have got extra buses. You have got some new buses.

PLACIDE: Yes.

COOPER: But it's just people to drive the buses.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: What about parents? Can they help?

PLACIDE: Well, you have to have a commercial driver's license.

(CROSSTALK)

PLACIDE: But parents -- in order to be a bus driver and trained and all that.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But you're trying to get them to carpool.

PLACIDE: But we are trying to get parents to carpool. If they can, we're asking them to bring their children to school, at least the first day or two, until we can really get a handle on how many children still are in East Baton Rouge Parish.

COOPER: And how does -- I mean, how does kids who are already in a school, placed in a school, react to a doubling of the school population, where 5,300 new kids come in?

PLACIDE: Well, we're not going to overcrowd our schools. We have actually -- we actually have spaces in our schools. We don't want the schools -- we're not lowering our standards. We are not reducing the quality of education.

We're adding where we have vacant slots. We had been in a declining mode for student enrollment for the last several years. And we had been wanting our population to increase. We didn't want it to increase overnight.

COOPER: And not like this either.

PLACIDE: But it's kind of like having set up a brand new school system these last two weeks, because we have a school population increase that really is the size of some total school districts.

COOPER: Well, to set up an entire new school population system is a big task.

PLACIDE: It is.

COOPER: And I appreciate you taking time out to talk with us. Thank you, Charlotte Placide.

PLACIDE: Yes. We are excited to do it. And I just hope parents will be patient. I hope the community will be patient, because we are going to have more parents on the road helping to bring their children to school. But we are going to get them all to school and eventually on buses.

COOPER: All right.

PLACIDE: OK. Thank you.

COOPER: Let's hope so. All right, Charlotte.

PLACIDE: All right.

COOPER: Thanks very much.

It is one of those things, Aaron, you just -- you don't really think about after a storm like this, one of those -- it's not a small detail. It's a major detail. And, hopefully, they have it covered here in Baton Rouge -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, you just -- getting kids settled it so much a part of calming them down and getting their lives back to normal. They may not like the idea of going back to school, but once they're settled in, I think they'll be -- they'll be better off for it in lots of different ways, emotionally.

Sergeant Scott Andras just got home today. He's been in Iraq for the last seven months -- 11 months. He's a member of the Louisiana National Guard, the 256 Infantry, live in New Orleans. And he joins us by phone from Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Welcome home. Have you been to your home yet?

STAFF SGT. SCOTT ANDRAS, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD: No, sir. I have not been able to make it to my house yet.

BROWN: Do you know -- what do you know, if you know anything, about the condition of your house? ANDRAS: Basically, I have no idea the condition of my house. Once I got home, none of my -- I have talked to most of my family. And no one has been able to make it into New Orleans, because it's shut down right now. My brother's house is under water. But my actual house, I don't have anything on it. I don't know anything about my house.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Scott, is -- or Sergeant, is it in a part of the city that is thought to be dry or a part of the city that is thought to be flooded?

ANDRAS: It's thought to be flooded. But, once again, I don't know how much water the area took. So, I would like to think that it's dry, of course, but I'm uncertain.

BROWN: You're a citizen soldier. When you're a citizen, what do you do for a living?

ANDRAS: I do medical sales.

BROWN: Is the business that you work for still in business?

ANDRAS: Yes, sir. They're still in business. They're based out of northern Louisiana. I'm sure my territory is going to take a little hit and get slow, but the company is still in business.

BROWN: How did you find out about -- well, first of all, how did you find out about the storm? When did you find out about the storm itself and how bad it was?

ANDRAS: We started watching it actually in Iraq. We were watching CNN and we would actually track the storm as it was coming closer. But people who live in Louisiana, or New Orleans, evacuate so many times, you never expect something this severe. So, we didn't really anticipate this. Once we started seeing it on the news, just like everybody else, was in amazement that it actually went through New Orleans as it did.

BROWN: And how long after that -- that would have been Monday our time. How long after that did some officer come in and say, look it, you guys, we're going to bring you guys home?

ANDRAS: It was -- we were actually scheduled to come home at this time. We did our 11 months and were coming home. They did everything they could to get us home early. But to move a brigade of soldiers or to move a battalion of soldiers is a logistical nightmare. So, they did everything they could, but we pretty much got home on the same scheduled time, just about a day early.

BROWN: Just quickly, are you going to go work helping in the recovery? Is that what the plan is, or are you done?

ANDRAS: Yes, sir. I'm going to help rebuild the city.

BROWN: God bless you. Good luck. Welcome home. And we're glad you're safe.

ANDRAS: Good deal. Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

Just ahead, all quiet on the Gulf Coast. We will take you to small-town Louisiana, towns washed away, very nearly so, by the flooding.

This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency,"

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We began the night by telling you the death toll is expected to be significantly lower than the 10,000 that the people in New Orleans estimated it might be. We ought not lose fact of the sight that many people did perish. In one of the worst of the incidents uncovered so far, the death of more than 30 elderly residents at the St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Paris.

How and why they were left to drown was one of many unanswered questions. CNN's Drew Griffin has been working on the story, talking to a nurse who was on duty when the storm hit and just before. And Drew joins us tonight from New Orleans.

Good evening.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron.

We're getting bits and pieces of this horrible story. Now comes forward a nurse who was working at the nursing home on the Saturday before the storm. Her name is Tammy Degel (ph). CNN has confirmed she works there through pay stubs and checking out her driver's license, and indeed, Tammy Degel says when she was at the nursing home, there was an order they were not to evacuate, but all day long, Tammy says that the relatives of these people were calling up and they were told, if you want to get your loved one out, come and get them. Many did, Tammy says, but many did not. Take a listen to her emotional interview this evening in Alabama.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't understand if there was a mandatory evacuation scheduled for Sunday afternoon, why they did not get these people out. I don't understand why the ambulance service didn't go there, I don't understand why the parish official, the fire department, somebody, anybody didn't go there and get these people out. They knew they were elderly, incapable of getting out on their own. They were sick, they were infirm, but they deserved to live. And they did not deserve to drown and not know what happened to them. They were good people, loving people. I spent day after day after day with these people.

They knew what was going on around them. Some of them were confused. Some knew you by name. Hugs and kisses every day. I want to know who made it and who is there, and I want to apologize and give my deepest grievance to the family members who did lose their loved ones.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: The questions we would like to ask are to the owners. A couple, a long term couple that owns St. Rita's in St. Bernard Parish. Susan Candiotti, our colleague, has been trying to reach them for days now. We have been calling three separate home phone numbers, two business numbers, but there has been no answer. There's some speculation or concern that the owners may never live to tell this tale. They may be inside St. Rita.

We'll just have to wait and see when the coroner goes through.

BROWN: Answer if you can, we're describing this as there was an order not to evacuate. Who gave that order? Where those officials in St. Bernard's Parish, or someone else?

GRIFFIN: No. What Tammy is saying, it was a policy or the decision of the nursing home that they were not going to evacuate this nursing home and its residents. If relatives wanted to come and pick up their loved ones and do a self evacuation, they should do that. That was what was being told, and many did. But as we've been reporting, as many as 32 of the 59 patients there were left to die where they were.

BROWN: Drew, thank you. Drew Griffin, who is in the New Orleans area. Deb Feyerick is at our status desk here in New York. Deb, do you have more on this?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We do have more on this. As a matter of fact, the medical examiner, the state's medical examiner, was in St. Bernard's Parish today, 72 bodies have been collected from there, including the ones from that nursing home.

The attorney general announcing now that he is going to investigation why staff there did not evacuate all of the residents as they were told they had to just prior to the storm. Buses were offered. They turned the offer of those buses down. So the attorney general going to investigate why in fact that was the case.

We're told that of the 118 bodies at the morgue, about half of those have in fact been identified and claimed by family members. But of those bodies, some were found at hospitals, some at nursing homes, and other residences for the elderly. The medical examiner set to release the latest victim total on Saturday.

Another status alert, mosquitoes, health officials now say that they are going to start spraying New Orleans and surrounding neighborhoods. That is going to begin on Sunday and the U.S. Air Force is the one that's going to be flying the planes and getting the pesticide up into the air about two hours before nightfall.

That's the latest status alert. Aaron?

BROWN: Deb, thank you. Deb Feyerick with us tonight. Still to come on this Friday night, the scramble to get life saving medical help in the after math of the hurricane. We break first. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: From backpacks to teddy bears, to a desk in a crowded school room, we have witnessed an outpouring of generosity for Katrina's youngest victims. There are other children, however, who need more than the simple kindness of strangers. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen is in Baton Rouge tonight with the high price of upheaval.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six-year-old Tony Nata has no home, no place to go, no possessions, but he does have cancer. Before Katrina struck, Tony and his family evacuated from their home in Sidell, Louisiana. The street in front of their house, a river. His father's truck, underwater. Their first worry, how would Tony get his treatment?

ROBIN NATA, TONY'S MOTHER: Where is his doctor? Where do we go? Who do we contact? You don't know where to turn, but crow know it's critical. He needs this treatment. Words don't explain the frantic that you go into, the mode you go into just to know that it's his life, and he just relapsed June 30th.

COHEN: Tony's leukemia, once just in his blood stream, is now in the membranes surrounding his brain. He needs chemo to get ready for a bone marrow transplant.

NATA: Tony is at a 35 percent chance of survival without a transplant right now. So it was critical.

COHEN: His parents found out that his hospital, Children's in New Orleans, had been evacuated. They heard about this clinic in Baton Rouge being run by St. Jude's Children Research Hospital. They're reaching out to evacuated children with cancer. They had no idea their doctor from New Orleans, Maria Velez would be there.

NATA: We seen her in the hallway. She was going to grab a cup of coffee. She just hugged and kissed me and I hugged her back.

COHEN: They have taken in so many evacuated kids with cancer, the clinic doubled in size virtually overnight to 20 patients a day.

Fourteen month old Lauren Williams (ph) from rural Louisiana is late for her chemo.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Open your mouth! Let's see.

COHEN: Two-year-old Quinn Patron (ph) from New Orleans needs treatment for his leukemia. And they're the lucky ones. Dr. Velez has no idea where most of her patients are, and she's worried sick about them. They're prone to infection and she fears that some might have waded through the toxic New Orleans floodwaters. DR. MARIA VELEZ, PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGIST: It's a nightmare. Because many kids need treatment, they need surgery coming up shortly. And we don't know anything about them. What about little Johnny, what about Susie, where are they? How are they doing? Are they okay? Have they lost everything? Do they have medicines? So it's a horrible thing.

COHEN: Dr. Velez herself is an evacuee from New Orleans. Her husband and two children are staying in Houston with friends but she won't leave her patients. She calculates Tony's chemotherapy dose, and she tells the family it's time to be admitted into the hospital for two days of chemo.

VELEZ: You look good. Good to go.

COHEN: In his hospital room, the nurse gets him ready. Even when Tony does get his bone marrow transplant, his odds of survival are 50/50. His father, Tony Senior, has to leave to see what is left of their house. A family separated by the storm. A family determined to save their son.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (on camera): Now, if there are family in this situation, who have been evacuated and who are looking for care for their children with cancer, there are several phone numbers that you can call.

First of all, you can call the St. Jude Clinic in Baton Rouge, that's the clinic we had in our story and their phone number is 225- 763-6337.

Also St. Jude and their main hospital in Memphis, 866-278-583 - I know there's another number on there. Can't see it.

American Cancer Society, anyone who had cancer, pediatric, adult, 800-ACS-2345. That would be the number to call.

Anderson?

COOPER: Elizabeth, thanks for that. For children who are receiving chemotherapy, the ramifications of bacterial infection are so potentially fatal that even poor dental hygiene, something like tooth decay, is considered a serious risk. You can imagine how concerned doctors are about patients that have been exposed to the gauntlet of unsanitary conditions we've seen in New Orleans, especially wading through that water.

Aaron?

BROWN: That one broke your heart. Will (ph), do you have the slide, the phone number slide so we can get the one number up. See if we can get that.

The St. Jude's physician referral line is 866-278-5833. So if you missed that, and you know, I hope that kid makes it. Ahead on the program, from criminal to Good Samaritan, an unlikely hero. Should he now go free?

We'll take a break. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a night of very powerful stories. Coming up, a story about a bad guy who turned out to be not such a bad guy.

But first some of the other day's headlines from Erica Hill in Atlanta. Ms. Hill, one more time.

HILL: Hi, Aaron. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee has recommended a new insulin pill for type two diabetics. I am probably going to mispronounce it so I'll just warn you now. Muraglitazar was developed by two big drug companies. It will be sold under a name Pargluva. Critics, however, say the drug's side effects make it too risky.

More than a dozen detainees on a hunger strike at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay are now being fed by feeding tubes. A total of 89 detainees are refusing to eat to protest their treatment in detention. Some have fasted for a month, 15 of them have been hospitalized.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen is headed back to jail after being found to be in satisfactory health. Killen was convicted in June for the 1964 killing of three civil rights workers. Now, he was released on bond an month ago after he complained of chronic back pain that confined him to a wheelchair, but that release was reversed after the 80-year-old Killen was seen driving freely, Aaron, around town.

BROWN: I didn't know chronic back pain would get you out of jail, anyway.

HILL: Apparently it worked, but only for a while.

BROWN: Only for a while. Have a good weekend, Erica. Thank you.

The early days of this tragedy, this disaster were filled with story of people looting, preying on the helpless and more. In general, acting like bad people.

Tonight, the story of a bad guy. An admitted and jailed forger who was brought by fate and circumstances to one of those moments in life where he was tested, and it's fair to say he passed. His story from CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE MILLER, JAIL INMATE: And I came out that door right there.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When Katrina hit, Steve Miller could have escaped. Instead the inmate at the Hancock County Jail stayed. MILLER: You couldn't hardly stand up. The water was pushing us. It was a fight to get to the door. It was just unbelievable how strong the wind was and the water rising.

ROWLANDS: Steve was inside the jail, but out of his cell during the storm, as the storm pounded Bay St. Louis, he saw a sheriff's deputy fall trying to help a man and woman to safety. Steve pulled them all inside the jail. It would be the first of several rescues. After the storm, Steve says he and another inmate were outside when he heard two women screaming.

MILLER: Them women were really screaming. Like I say, you couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was just heart wrenching ...

ROWLANDS: Both women were in their 70s. One of them was hurt.

MILLER: She had a piece of the room had fell on her and broke her arm. I took my shirt off and tied her arm up. And we helped the other lady up and laid her on a board. With what we could find. And that's when we heard a man.

ROWLANDS: The man was just a few houses away.

MILLER: I could hear him hollering for help. Like I say, it was about waist deep here.

ROWLANDS: It took about 45 minutes to dig the man out. The man and two women were then taken to a hospital in a pickup. Steve said he sat in the back of a pickup with the injured man.

MILLER: I held his hand and tried to keep the rain out of his face. To talk to him all the way to the hospital.

ROWLANDS: That man ended up passing away, but the others did survive. People hearing Steve's story are amazed that he's an inmate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. You did a great thing.

MILLER: I'm glad for once I did something like this. It makes you feel good to help people. I've never done that before.

ROWLANDS: Sheriff deputies say they think Steve is a changed man, and they want him pardoned.

BOB UNDERWOOD, SHERIFF'S DEPUTY: When it got down to it, he didn't think about anything but other people. Maybe for the first time in his life. I don't know, but all he was thinking about was other people and then he got the word on his wife and baby.

ROWLANDS: Both had been killed in the storm.

MILLER: I found out after losing what I have lost, I do need my family. And what I got left, I'm not going to turn my back on it.

ROWLANDS: Steve is awaiting sentencing after confessing to forgery. As for the pardon ...

MILLER : If I don't get it, I'm not mad at all. I'm just going to do this and get out, but I feel better about myself. I really do.

ROWLANDS: Ted Rowlands, CNN, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up, you already know what Katrina did at the gas pump. Wait until you find out what it does to your heating bill. This, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to this special two-hour edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency." We have so many stories of sorrow and sadness over these last two weeks or so tonight. Coming up ahead, a story with a happy ending at this point. A woman we introduced you to last night, Paige Benson, they call her the sausage lady. She was watching television, watching CNN. She wanted to help.

She came to New Orleans. She finds herself serving 6,000 people food every day. Polie and soldiers, first responders. Food that's been donated, sausages donated by a little league team in Alabama. Well, today, Paige got a call from another CNN viewer, a celebrity, a very surprising call and this celebrity wants to help. We'll tell you who it is and how she's going to help coming up ahead.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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