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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Hurricane Ophelia Batters Carolina Coast; New Orleans Nursing Home Deaths Under Investigation
Aired September 14, 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: And good evening, again, everyone. Good evening to you, Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, Aaron.
There are stories that will not be going away any time soon, among them, what happened at a local hospital where decisions were made and patients were left to die, one of the bitter legacies of this storm.
First, though, the other hurricane -- Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, Hurricane Ophelia seemed to be sitting out there in the Atlantic, waiting until things settled down enough in New Orleans to make her strike. She got tired of waiting, it seems. And her winds and her rains are now slashing the Carolina coast.
CNN's Rob Marciano is there. He joins us from a very wet and windy Atlantic Beach, North Carolina -- Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I will tell you what, Aaron. It's been a wild ride today.
This slow-moving storm only a Category 1, but it has been absolutely raking the North Carolina coastline. Right now, it sits about 30 miles from us, just offshore. We got hit with the eastern, northeastern part of the eye wall about two hours ago, a bit of a break now. Winds have shifted and they are blowing offshore. So, it's a different scenario altogether, but is still pretty hairy.
Give you an idea of -- check out some of the things we experienced earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVE FAHERTY, WSOC REPORTER: And the rain just -- oh, man, it just keeps coming down, coming sideways at times. And since I'm right -- excuse me -- since I'm right along the beach here, the sand that's not packed down by that high surf, boy, it gets flying. It just hits you right in the side of the face.
GOV. MIKE EASLEY (D), NORTH CAROLINA: If you have been asked to evacuate, please do so, because these floods are going to be worse than anticipated yesterday. And some are under mandatory evacuation. Some are under voluntary evacuation. But ,either way, once the high winds come, we cannot get in and get you out, cannot get there by boat, cannot get there by helicopter, cannot get there by plane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just don't know about these things. Like I said, one two-by-four through this window here and we have got big problems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm up on one of the highest bridges there is on the island, and I have never had tide in my house before. So, I'm from here. I lived here all my life. This is an everyday thing with us, nothing but a breeze to blow away the mosquitoes and the tourists.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: And this storm has yet to officially even make landfall. It will probably clip Cape Lookout. Maybe not, maybe just continue raking up the coastline and hit Cape Hatteras later on, early tomorrow morning, and then eventually move out to sea. But it's been a wild ride for sure.
We are on a pier that goes out to the ocean about 80, 90 yards; 20 yards of that was totally swept away by the ocean. Unbelievable, the power when high tide rolled in. The tide has receded and the winds have pushed offshore. So, the storm surge not nearly what it was six hours ago. But the duration of this storm, Aaron, is going to be the hugest issue, big-time beach erosion, and then inland flooding from the persistent east winds that have pushed the water from Pamlico Sound up into the rivers that are training to drain, in some cases, 10 to 12 inches of rainwater that's been coming down for the past few days -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just let me -- let me try a question, Rob.
Do you see evidence that people, in the wake of Katrina, have heeded the advice to evacuate?
MARCIANO: I think so. I think so.
I will tell you, you know, normally -- well, not normally, but I have seen a couple of Cat 1 hurricanes and there's always a couple of yahoos, you know, floating around, getting into the storm. We haven't seen many of those.
So, on top of that, there have been 60 shelters set up. And word from the officials is that those have been filling up. So, it seems, in the wake of Katrina, even though it's a -- I don't want to say only a Category 1 storm, but certainly not a Katrina. In the wake of Katrina, folks are taking this (AUDIO GAP)
BROWN: Rob, thank you very much, Rob Marciano.
We will keep an eye on the hurricane, Ophelia, as we go along tonight.
Back now to Katrina and the developments of the day, a story that continues to evolve in a lot of places, with lots to report. Just a moment ago, the mayor of New Orleans on "LARRY KING LIVE" told Larry he will shortly announce a plan to bring 180,000 residents back into the city over the next couple of weeks. In its report today on air quality in New Orleans, the EPA says levels of toxic chemicals are still within safety limits. Floodwaters, though, still pose a serious health hazard in many parts of the city.
The Army Corps of Engineers says it is pumping about nine billion gallons of water out of the city every day, meaning, if all goes well, the city could be pumped dry by the end of October. Parts of Long Beach, Mississippi, are off-limits tonight. Authorities -- authorities have used barbed-wire fencing to cordon off the most devastated parts of the town. Officially, they say it's to keep out the looters. Military police believe there still may be many bodies in the area.
And the number of confirmed fatalities from Katrina has now risen to 707; 474 of those people died in Louisiana alone. The count goes on, among them, the 34 people who died at St. Rita's Nursing Home in a case that will be settled by the criminal courts, the owners charged with negligent homicide.
And, tonight, 14 more dead to report, this time in a nursing home in New Orleans proper, and, as was the case with St. Rita's, it, too, is getting the attention of investigators and the attention of CNN's Drew Griffin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even today, getting to Lafon Nursing Home is difficult. The streets, Broad Street, Gentilly, Chef Menteur Highway, are littered with debris. Two underpasses remain flooded.
But, when you arrive, you quickly learn no one drowned here. The water never reached the nursing home. But it did get high enough to strand it. Those who died had not been evacuated. They were waiting for rescue, the sidewalk to the front door, the parking lot strewn with pillows, walkers, and wheelchairs, all shadows of the people, the elderly baking for days after the hurricane under a hot sun.
(on camera): Of everything we have seen, this is probably the saddest sight of all, these nursing home beds pushed to the lobby, out here in the open, water bottles, meals ready to eat, wheelchairs where people sat waiting to be rescued, struggling to stay alive until help arrived, and, on the wall, the sad number of the people who could not wait long enough.
(voice-over): Sister Augustine McDaniel (ph) was the administrator of Lafon. By phone, she confirmed 14 died here before she was evacuated to Texas. She said she could not give us more details about what happened because she wanted to keep the phone line open for victims' families. There are signs at least one more may have died in her parking lot.
(on camera): Put it inside this van, one dead. (voice-over): Should Lafon have evacuated its patients before the storm? Is there someone to blame for this? Yesterday, the attorney general of Louisiana filed charges against the operators of another nursing home, St. Rita's in St. Bernard Parish, where 34 residents drowned. They were not evacuated either before the storm, and the attorney general called that decision by St. Rita's owners negligent homicide. He vowed to challenge anyone who, during this hurricane, neglected the elderly.
CHARLES FOTI, LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: We will investigate each and every one and will not hesitate, either civilly or criminally, to bring a prosecution or file a lawsuit to protect the interests of our senior citizens and those people that are not able to care for themselves that need round-the-clock care.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We absolutely had an evacuation plan.
GRIFFIN: The attorney for St. Rita's said the owners now charged are actually heroes who did nothing wrong. Dr. Bryan Bertucci, the coroner of St. Bernard Parish, says those who take care of the elderly make difficult decisions every day. He pulled every body out of St. Rita's. Almost all had been his patients. He believes they died in the hands of caring people, who, in the days and hours of the approaching storm, were making life-and-death decisions on when and how to evacuate and at what cost.
DR. BRYAN BERTUCCI, ST. BERNARD PARISH CORONER: And the fact people don't understand, that we have evacuated several times where the hurricane didn't even come near us. And two to three of our nursing home patients, each time we transport them out, die.
GRIFFIN: What happened at Lafon is now under state investigation. The 14 dead are being identified, their families notified. But with no flood, the killer here appears to have been the wait for rescue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRIFFIN: Aaron, we do know that some of the residents of Lafon Nursing Home did evacuate before the storm. We just don't know how many. We also know through a friend of the sisters who ran this nursing home that those sisters now scattered across the country, and after going through this tragedy, are now very afraid they, too, are the targets of a criminal probe -- Aaron.
BROWN: Actually, everybody needs to take a breath here and sort a lot of facts out.
The fact there are MREs there suggests to me that, at some point, rescue teams came to the area.
GRIFFIN: And at least got supplies there.
BROWN: Right.
GRIFFIN: There was one pallet of water bottles. But could they get the people out? Remember, there was a lot of confusion during those time. And some of the rescuers could bring in supplies, maybe in a military vehicle, but did not have the means to get people out at that time.
The nun that we talked to who ran this place, she just could not talk to us. She was too broken up. She wanted to keep her phone lines open for the victims' families still calling her. And we never got a chance to get back to her. The phone was just busy all day.
BROWN: Well, we will keep working -- keep working on that.
The point here, it just seems to me -- Drew, thank you -- is, is that these things are complex stories. We want them to be black and white. They are not.
The story of the evacuation in total has been a series of stories. If you think about it, it's a series of horrible, difficult decisions that people were forced to make, sometimes with water literally at their door. Did they make the right choices? Did they make the wrong choices? Will some people go to jail for the choices they made or didn't make? We will hear a lot more about this in the days ahead, about these two nursing homes and the decisions made there, and what happened at a hospital where dozens of people died.
Anderson has been working that part of the story tonight -- Anderson.
COOPER: Yes, Aaron. It's interesting, what you say about choices.
We have seen people made the -- some people made the right choices. Some didn't. I mean, some people became heroes in the midst of this disaster. And some good people became desperate people and did terrible things.
We're talking tonight, of course, about what happened at Memorial Medical Center, where a better picture is taking shape now of who was left behind and why.
Here is CNN's Jonathan Freed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The hospital says, contrary to early reports, none of the 45 victims drowned. But they died just the same. Now the question is why.
DR. GLENN CASEY, MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: So, under normal circumstances, we have very sickly patients at our institution.
FREED: Dr. Glenn Casey was trapped at the downtown New Orleans hospital after floodwaters encircled it. He says Memorial's patients at that time were people without a lot of fight left in them.
CASEY: We have a large oncology service, where patients were receiving chemotherapy for their cancer. We have a large end-stage renal disease population, where people are on dialysis. We have a large surgical service. We have a large LSU ENT, where we have a lot of head and neck cancers that are stationed at our institution on a regular basis.
FREED: At least 20 such patients were in an extended-care wing, people so sick, Casey explains, they were essentially waiting to die. Doctors say the heat contributed to some of the deaths. Temperatures inside the hospital approached 110 degrees.
Eight to 10 others found dead were already in the morgue before the storm. Doctors are adamant they did what they could to save everyone. They are asking people to try to appreciate that, while the number 45 is shocking, that many deaths are not unusual in this type of disaster.
DR. JOHN WALSH, MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: Given the conditions that we were functioning in, that this is about what I would expect. And I think that other institutions, when you hear their story, will have similar numbers and a comparable story.
FREED: Doctors say there were about 225 patients, 300 doctors, nurses and other staff, as well as about 1,000 other people stuck there at Memorial during the flood. The hospital says it managed to evacuate them all, either by boat or helicopter, except the 45, who could not be moved in time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREED: Now, the Louisiana attorney general's office says it is going to be investigating the deaths at the hospital, Anderson. And the hospital told me today that it welcomes that review -- Anderson.
COOPER: Jonathan, have autopsies been done, or do we know that they definitely will be done on these people?
FREED: We have been trying to find that out today, many, many hours on the phone, working with the coroner's office and the various departments that deal with that. We expect that that is going to happen, but so far no clear picture as to whether or not it has actually happened yet.
Of course, that is going to be the key, examining the bodies to see if there might have been any foul play at all.
COOPER: And we know, from what has happened to other people here, there are so many bodies at this point, not enough refrigeration trucks to keep them. That's been one of the reasons so many of these bodies haven't been picked up, so many of these people haven't been picked up, at this point.
Jonathan, thanks for that. He'll continue working the phones.
Let's go back to Aaron in New York.
BROWN: You know, Anderson, it just -- it seems to me that, at some point in this, there's a baseline ethical question about what doctors and caregivers have to do, should do, when faced with their own risk as well. And maybe it's time we start bringing in ethicists on to talk about that.
Coming up on the program tonight, a congressman who apparently used the National Guard to help him check up on his home. Well, he did. The circumstances are perhaps subject to the debate.
But, first, at about a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other news of the day.
Christi Paul again with us tonight. And, again, she's in Atlanta.
Good evening, Ms. Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron.
More than 150 people are dead and hundreds wounded after a massive bombing and shooting campaign primarily Baghdad. Now, al Qaeda is claiming responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in response to a recent offensive against insurgents.
And back in the states, Delta and Northwest Airlines filed for bankruptcy today, citing rising fuel prices and low-cost competition. Both say they will continue to fly. They join United Airlines and U.S. Airways in operating under bankruptcy protection.
Social issues dominated the second day of hearings for chief justice nominee John Roberts. He dealt with senators' questions about abortion, property rights, patient rights, and said the Supreme Court should be consistent in dealing with the separation of church and state -- Aaron, going to send it back to you now.
BROWN: Christi, thank you. And I will take it back now.
A lot more to come on the program tonight. We begin with a congressman, the devastation, and a slight detour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LT. COL. PETE SCHNEIDER, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD: He asked -- he asked to be taken to his residence.
BROWN (voice-over): He kept the soldiers waiting at the height of the rescue operation. What was so important? We will ask him tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm an old woman.
BROWN: Mary Ford (ph) didn't want to be rescued. She didn't want to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the good lord wanted me, he would have took me with that wind.
BROWN: Instead, we helped a son take his mother back into his arms.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, let me take a picture of you for your second first day of school.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Later, the picture of a divorced couple. What would make them move back into the same house? The hurricane that brought the family together, sort of.
And all through the night, the latest on the latest, Ophelia, because the danger is still out there.
From New York and New Orleans and beyond, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You're looking at a live picture, Atlantic Beach, the coast of North Carolina, where that storm, Hurricane Ophelia, Category 1, is slowing waiting, slowing coming ashore. We will keep an eye on it all throughout this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."
For decades, oil and water have been the lifeblood of the Gulf Coast around New Orleans. But with Hurricane Katrina, first water, then oil became a devastating one-two punch. Communities like St. Bernard Parish, already under water, suddenly flooded again with massive oil spills.
CNN's Ed Lavandera investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The dark smudges on the white picket fences of this St. Bernard Parish neighborhood tell you these homes weren't just devastated by the storm, but stained by something that will take longer to clean up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is extremely hazardous in this area right here.
LAVANDERA: Shortly after we arrived in the neighborhood near the Murphy oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana, military police warned us to stay away from the toxic streets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to leave and go get decontaminated.
LAVANDERA: Five days after Hurricane Katrina struck, floodwaters forced an oil tank in this refinery off its foundation, sending about 820,000 gallons of crude oil into the neighborhood that was already submerged in 12 feet of water.
CLAIBORNE DEMING, PRESIDENT, MURPHY OIL CORPORATION: And so then, you have mud, because all the mud from the marsh was lifted up and deposited. And so, many times, it's hard to distinguish what is oil and what is mud. But it's extensive and it is noticeable. And it's just there.
LAVANDERA: Claiborne Deming is the president of the Murphy Oil Corporation. He says the oil leak has been controlled and that crews are now cleaning up, sucking the oil out of canals and using sand to soak up oil off the streets. Satellite images capture the magnitude of the spill, which spreads over several miles.
(on camera): The satellite images of this area don't do the story on the ground justice. We are in the neighborhood next to the Murphy oil refinery. And, as we have driven the streets and tried to walk around, we have see this repeatedly, a foot-thick layer of oil and other flood debris.
And it is almost impossible to walk through. It is thick and it is heavy. And the smell of oil is everywhere.
(voice-over): The streets of this neighborhood are quiet. Many of the people who live here work in the oil business. We couldn't find any residents who have come back to check on their homes, only a frightened dog with sludge-stained paws. Claiborne Deming says he's not sure when or if this neighborhood will ever come back to life.
DEMING: It's devastating. It makes you sick at your heart. The devastation of the homes is just hard to imagine, what the floodwaters and the wind did. And then to have an oil spill come up behind it is just -- it's hard -- it's hard to see the devastation from the storm. It was catastrophic.
LAVANDERA: Along the Gulf Coast, there are five major oil spills crews are working to contain, about six million gallons in all. That's about half the size of the infamous Exxon Valdez spill.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On now to one of those episodes that can sometimes turn into a hallmark moment, in this case, the cliched tearful family reunion, not to worry. Mary Ford wouldn't dream of it, wouldn't dream of leaving after the storm either. And, as for the reunion, as you will see in a moment, it began with a gentle disagreement.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rescue.
BROWN (voice-over): Of all the places these Nevada firefighters went...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a strong odor and a window open on this house. You want us to (INAUDIBLE) BROWN: All the searches conducted, successes and failures and obstacles encountered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, guys, on this block, we're looking for 5253.
BROWN: Their days on the job can be summed up in just a few words. There was something about Mary.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the good lord wanted me, he would have took me with that wind.
BROWN: They first met 80-year-old Mary Ford on Monday. She'd ridden out the storm in the home she shares with her daughter's family. Her daughter was evacuated to Texas and she begged her mom to come, but Mary had other ideas. As we have said, there is something about Mary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not going to have any power or water for a long time. I mean, we just feel bad about leaving you here.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But there's people that's got children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You should be worried about them.
BROWN: The firefighters did what they could, fixed the hinge on her door, checked her food and water, gave her a flashlight and some extra batteries. At some point, they, too, got it. There's something about Mary.
CAPTAIN DENNIS SNIDER, NEVADA TASK FORCE: We're here to rescue people and find people that are in need of rescue. And just, for whatever their reason, they don't want to leave. It's difficult for us.
MATT ANDREWS, SON OF MARY: Sure. Everybody was worried sick about her. But we couldn't anything. We couldn't find out.
BROWN: Mary Ford's son Matt was away when Katrina hit and thought she had left with his sister. In the confusion of the evacuation, it took days for him to realize she was missing.
CNN producer Mary Ann Fox (ph) found him in his undamaged home in Jefferson Parish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look who we brought. You know this young fellow, don't you?
BROWN: For Matt, there was relief.
ANDREWS: How are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, just to know you are safe.
BROWN: But that lasted only long enough for him to remember what he had known all his life. There's just something about Mary. And she wasn't leaving, not with her son, not with the firefighters, not without her cats.
ANDREWS: You care about the cats more than anything, but they don't mean to me what you mean to me.
BROWN: When Mary finally agreed to leave, went to pack up her stuff, the guys from Nevada, Task Force One, were there to help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you show us a couple of things in the room, papers that you might want to take for the night staying at Matt's house?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's amazing, in just that short amount of time, how you can start caring about somebody so much.
BROWN: Thank yous were said.
ANDREWS: Thank all of you guys from my heart, guys. Thank you.
BROWN: And then goodbyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will be thinking of you.
BROWN: But for as long as they leave, these guys will tell you, they will remember that elderly and stubborn woman, because there's something about Mary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really a good feeling. And all of the guys will -- this is not just a career memory. This is a lifelong memory.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a moment, we go back to North Carolina, where Hurricane Ophelia continues to bear down on the coast. Those are live pictures tonight.
And later, the family that Hurricane Katrina brought back under -- brought together under a single roof, if just for a moment.
From New Orleans and from New York, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The program tonight spent really on two storms, Hurricane Ophelia, the one now soaking the Carolinas and expected to make life miserable there for hours, if not days, to come, and of course Katrina.
Ophelia now.
Rob Marciano is in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, where it is raining and blowing.
MARCIANO: (AUDIO GAP) over a day now, Aaron.
And conditions seem to change by the minute. That's when you know the storm, or at least the center of the storm, is close to us. We have seen wind shifts now almost continuously. And we have had to constantly move our position. Now the winds are coming offshore, meaning pretty much from the north. And this beach faces south. So, before, when we had winds coming in off the ocean or off the beach, there really wasn't a concern about any sort of flying debris.
And there are pieces of structure, not structures that are down, but pieces of roofs, gutters, fences that are -- have been flying around. So, we have had to seek some sort of protection. It's been quite a wild ride, Aaron.
I'm thinking the center of the storm is that way, towards Cape Lookout, and it shows no signs of weakening, that's for sure.
Low tide now, that's a good thing, and now winds blowing offshore. So the surf that was literally up to this pier, a good 50 to 80 yards back from the pier. So, it's amazing to see how this ocean seems to live and breathe.
And, you know, officially, Aaron, it hasn't made landfall yet. So it continues to literally rake the coastline and is moving so slow. It's just pounding North Carolina for at least two days, like you said.
BROWN: Rob, here's a suggestion. Take care tonight and take cover. We will try not to drag you out too many more times. Thank you, Rob Marciano in North Carolina.
Jacqui Jeras tracking it from the warmth and relative comfort of CNN in Atlanta. Just looking at the -- I guess, the radar, whatever, the computer imagery is there, it doesn't look nearly as well-defined as Katrina looked.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yes, not at all. Definitely not nearly as organized. Much, much, much, much weaker storm. In fact, this storm, you know, well-built homes, they are going to be all fine with this. The biggest problem is going to be the heavy rain and the storm surge. And the center of the storm has kind of been erratic, kind of moving all over the place.
It's about 30 miles now south of Cape Lookout, which is that little point right there. And the eyewall of the storm, where the worst of the rain and the wind is, has just been pounding the North Carolina coast, especially right where Rob is, right about here at on Atlantic Beach.
So you can see Morehead City here pop up. Rob's right about there. So he's been getting some of the worst of the weather, and the wind gusts have just been pretty incredible, 70, 80-plus miles per hour. Rainfall amounts also very incredible in some of these pink areas, that's between 10 and 15 inches of rainfall there. We've seen three to six on northward of there, up towards Jacksonville and extending that a little farther towards Cape Hatteras.
As we take a look at some of the wind reports coming in, a peak gust, 92 miles per hour at Cape Lookout, we had 79 at Wrightsville Beach. Surf City, 67 mile-per-hour wind gusts.
The storm could still strengthen a little bit as long as it stays offshore, Aaron. Likely going to be scraping right across Cape Lookout we think tomorrow and likely make its way back in the open water by mid to late tomorrow afternoon -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jacqui, thank you very much.
So, we keep track of that tonight, and it's just kind of hanging out there, as Jacqui said and Rob said. Anderson, moving sort of slowly, doing what storms do, which is making life miserable for everybody.
COOPER: Yes. It certainly is that. And we will continue to watch it. Thanks, Aaron.
So much of this story is about haves and have-nots. We have seen how those who could get out did and those who couldn't were left to their fate. It's through this lens that questions are being asked about the conduct of a Louisiana congressman, William Jefferson, in the days just after the storm.
Here is CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday, September 2nd, five days after Katrina struck, the National Guard struggles to restore order in New Orleans. People stuck in their homes desperately seek a miracle, while those who got out are languishing at the convention center, which has descended into the hurricane shelter from hell.
That same day, Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson publicly tours the devastation with President Bush. And, while his constituents cling to life, the congressman quietly uses National Guard troops to check on his own home in a pricey part of New Orleans, so he can retrieve some personal belongings.
LT. COL. PETE SCHNEIDER, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD: So, we provided the vehicles to give Congressman Jefferson a tour of his district, and, as part of that tour, he asked to be taken to his residence.
GRIFFIN: Jefferson maintains he wanted an up-close look at the devastation in his district and only accepted the offer of an escort when National Guard officials urged it upon him for safety reasons.
With the help of a five-ton military truck and several military police officers, Jefferson visited his home, where floodwaters had reached the porch. Jefferson says his wife had urged him to retrieve personal items. SCHNEIDER: We pulled into the residence. He departed the vehicle and went into his house and proceeded to take some things out.
GRIFFIN: The congressman acknowledges he emerged with a laptop, a large box, and at least two suitcases, after leaving the soldiers outside for nearly an hour. The soldiers waited so long, their truck got mired in the water. So, they sought help.
SCHNEIDER: The soldiers in the truck -- in the first truck, noticed a Coast Guard helicopter coming by, and they flagged them down. The diver, essentially the rescuer, rappelled out of the helicopter onto the residence.
GRIFFIN: A second military truck was dispatched to help pull the first one out of the water. And a rescue diver in the Coast Guard helicopter offered to take Jefferson, but he declined.
The helicopter, carrying other evacuees, was also able to rescue one of Jefferson's neighbors. In an unrelated case, Congressman Jefferson is currently facing a federal corruption probe, and the FBI recently raided his homes in New Orleans and Washington. When asked whether Jefferson went to his Louisiana home to remove any materials relevant to that probe, the congressman's spokeswoman said, quote: "The pending investigation is irrelevant. If they didn't get all the information after a nine-hour search, I don't know what else they could get."
It's not uncommon for lawmakers to get National Guard tours after a natural disaster for official reasons. But what's raising questions is Jefferson's use of the Guard to collect some of his belongings at the height of the crisis.
Ed Henry, CNN, Capitol Hill
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So it hasn't been a very pleasant time for the Congressman Jefferson, not with the hurricane and not with the criminal investigation. We talked with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Congressman, would you agree that at the very least, at the very least, having a National Guard unit swing you by your house -- for whatever reasons you were with the National Guard, and some are absolutely legitimate, but having them swing by your house so you could check it out and get some stuff, doesn't look very good.
REP. WILLIAM JEFFERSON (D), LOUSIANA: Well, it may not look very good, but it is an absolute human reaction. Every member of Congress went back to check to see what had happened, whether their house was under water, whether they had been looted.
In my case, I couldn't do that without somebody going and escorting me, because there were snipers and there was shooting in my city, and they wouldn't let me move around without an escort. And I wish I had been in a district where that wasn't happening, that wasn't true, though, for me, in a lawless situation there.
And so that's why. Look, I didn't want the National Guard with me. I wanted to go and look around my district by myself. But (INAUDIBLE) for my own security, the captain of police advised me that I shouldn't go down by myself. They were going to go down with me, at the end of the day, we decided we would just use the folks who were already on the ground.
BROWN: Congressman, did it -- one other way to look at this, did it ever occur to you to say, look, we've seen the Superdome, we've seen the convention center, we've seen the things we need to see, I'd really like to go to my house and check that out, anyone would, but you guys have a lot of other important things to do, things that are more important than taking a congressman to his house?
JEFFERSON: Yes. It was at night when we got to my place. These young men were at -- they were going back to their barracks. It had been, you know, 12:00 in the day and all that, but it was at night and it was at the end of our tour, at the end of the day.
And, look, there are lots of ways to look at this. I don't tell you that I wanted to go out there and have people occupied with doing things that affected my house, but everybody -- I wanted to know whether the thing was under water, whether it had been looted. And I figured it would be two- or three-minute diversion to go and do that.
It turned out that the truck got stuck in the mud, it turned out to be a much bigger deal than that, which I regret very much. But, frankly, I toured my district all day -- for any number of hours, not all day, but with the president, and then later on, by an overfly. Then I got on the ground and I visited with folks in the Superdome, convention center. Eventually I moved uptown to see some of the destruction there.
And uptown, I'm five or six minutes away from the convention center, no more than that. And so I was curious to see how it came out. It turned out to be quite unfortunate because it took time when the truck got stuck there, which is bad, and I hate that, but -- and I regret it...
BROWN: Let me -- I'm sorry, let me try and ask just two quick questions. Was there something particularly important you wanted to get out of the house, or was it just personal stuff, pictures and that sort of stuff?
JEFFERSON: No, I didn't know whether my house would be -- if I could get in and out of it at all. I didn't know whether it was under water or not. There wasn't anything particular thing I wanted. The idea was, if I could get in there, of course, we all left there with -- hoping we would come back in three days like everybody else.
My daughters were going away to school, and they had left their laptops, they had left one or two suitcases. And they told me if I ever got in the house, if it was livable, if it wasn't underwater, to get those things. I got those things for them. But there was nothing I had in mind except to see whether or not the house had been destroyed, whether or not it had been looted, and whether my neighbors' properties had been looted. We were in contact with many of our neighbors who wanted to know the same thing. And so I was looking for myself, of course, and for all of them.
BROWN: Congressman, just a final quick question. Seeing how people see this, and it's not hard to understand why they see it the way they do, if you had it to do all over again, would you tell those National Guardsmen and -women to go rescue somebody rather than take a congressman to his house?
JEFFERSON: I don't think the issue was whether they rescued me or got somebody to the house. There were thousands of National Guard people down there. I would, however, agree with you this much, I would go by myself and take my own chances because I wouldn't listen to the National Guard or the captain of police, anybody that was telling me I needed to be guarded by somebody. I would have just rather take my own chances with this.
Now what's happening now, as you know, is the National Republican Campaign Committee is sending around these transcripts and trying to talk this message up as a way of deflecting from the real issues of how we fix things down home. And I want to get us back to talking about that.
But I understand how people are curious about this, and how it's an important set of questions. But I don't have any problem with trying to answer them for you.
BROWN: Thank you. Whatever people may think of what you did or didn't do, we appreciate a lot that you have stood up to talk about it. That says something. And we appreciate your time.
JEFFERSON: I thank you very much. I appreciate the chance to talk about it.
BROWN: Thank you, sir.
JEFFERSON: Thank you, bye-bye.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Congressman Jefferson. We talked with him earlier tonight. Still to come on the program tonight, a divorced couple back under the same roof, for now, because of Katrina.
Break first. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT: "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back. I'm live in New Orleans at a camp site set up by the Oklahoma National Guard who are doing work 'round the clock here in New Orleans. On "LARRY KING" tonight, you might have missed it, New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, gave at least a glimpse of hope for the residents of this drowned city.
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: We're going to shock some people. Tomorrow, I'm going to announce a phased repopulation plan that is going to deal with some of the areas that were least hit by the hurricane and had less water. And then within the next week or two, we should have about 180,000 people back in the city of New Orleans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That certainly is shocking, that's the first time we've heard of that. And we will be looking for that press conference tomorrow for that announcement.
Hundreds of thousands of people scattered around the country by Hurricane Katrina are all trying to get back to some kind of normal life, whether it's here in New Orleans or elsewhere. Katrina separated many families, but tonight, the story of a family thrown back together by Katrina, a divorced couple working together to give their children stability in a brand new town.
CNN's Kathleen Koch reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Let me take a picture of you for your second first day at school.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Back-to-school rituals, repeated more than 1,000 miles from home. Divorced parents Gary and Karen Remer think her house and his apartment in New Orleans are both under water. They evacuated to Silver Spring, Maryland, to be closer to family and to set up a shared housing arrangement for their boys, Amos (ph) and Ezra (ph).
GARY REMER, EVACUEE: We'll alternate week by week, and the kids will stay here.
KAREN REMER, EVACUEE: Logistically this is to me more complicated, but given the situation, it is really best for the kids. It gives them some stability.
KOCH: Stability has been hard to come by.
G. REMER: Drawers, chest of draws, whatever.
K. REMER: Desk, kitchen table.
G. REMER: Yes, those kinds of things.
K. REMER: What are you going to do about a car?
G. REMER: I don't know. KOCH: Both left town with just a few days worth of clothing. Starting over has meant shopping for beds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to meet you. I'm sure we'll see you again. Good luck.
G. REMER: Thank you so much.
K. REMER: All right. Thanks again.
G. REMER: Thank you.
We have these lemon wafers. This -- a couscous salad. Roasted potatoes.
KOCH: And learning how to accept the generosity of strangers who saw their story on the local Jewish community's Web site.
K. REMER: They just went on the listserv, said, there's a family moving in, and, all this stuff.
(CROSSTALK)
G. REMER: Well, they brought couches, so we put one couch in here, and one couch there.
K. REMER: But it feels funny taking. I have a hard time with that, but I'm just grateful.
G. REMER: It makes me uncomfortable.
KOCH: Toys and clothing have been donated for the boys. The local Hebrew school has waived tuition. Still, adjusting has been difficult, particularly for 11-year-old Amos.
K. REMER: Breakdown, and he just started crying. And he I said, what is it? He goes, it's everything. And he needed to have that. And I haven't quite seen it in Ezra, the 7-year-old.
KOCH: Gary taught and Karen did research at Tulane University. Both think they will be able to continue their work in the Washington area. They know they are more fortunate than most evacuees.
G. REMER: So, the immediate issues are sort of solved, but the issues over the next six months, there are just so many question marks about it.
KOCH:: And that's what's toughest to deal with in the quiet moments between juggling the logistics of this new life.
K. REMER: You are doing fine, because you have got a purpose. That's when you stop, and you start thinking about that big picture that it gets hard.
KOCH: Kathleen Koch, CNN, Silver Spring, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And it is so difficult for children to deal with and so many are still separated from their families. We're going to talk about them a little bit later on tonight.
But coming up, "under God" under fire, a federal judge rules the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is unconstitutional.
And a special report, on the road to recovery from NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen in Pearlington, Mississippi.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The Pledge of Allegiance is back in the news, and Christi Paul is back in Atlanta at the news desk with the details -- Christi.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, out of California, Aaron, a federal judge in Sacramento has ruled that it is unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools because of the phrase "under God." Now the judge backed an appeals court ruling which found in favor of atheist Michael Newdow. He said the pledge violated a child's constitutional right to be free from a, quote, "coercive requirement to affirm God."
President Bush discussed the nuclear threats of North Korea and Iran with Chinese President Hu Jintao in New York last night. But talks in Beijing today aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program are making little progress right now.
And the House of Representatives has passed legislation which will give federal protection to gay people who are victims of hate crimes. It's part of the Children's Safety Act, which aims to tighten up the reporting requirements for child sex offenders.
That's it from Atlanta. Back to you, Aaron.
BROWN: Christi, thank you very much. Coming up, looking at New Orleans under water, and, well, if not dry, at least less under water.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two weeks after the levees broke, New Orleans is still officially a disaster zone, and there may be many problems to be faced in the days and months ahead. And in a minute-and-a-half or so, the bigger picture then and now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Two weeks ago, 80 percent of the city of New Orleans was flooded. Since then, 53 pumps have been spitting out up to 9 billion gallons of water a day, and now only half the city is under water. This is what progress looks like in New Orleans.
In places like the 9th Ward, where flood waters swallowed homes, some parts now look like this and like this. The break at the 17th Street Canal Levee that caused so much of that deadly flooding now looks like this, all but patched with a mountain of sandbags.
In places like Saint Bernard Parish, where water made streets into canals, ankle-deep mud has taken the place of neck-high water. At the Superdome, where throngs of people were penned in by a moat of water, sidewalks are deserted. But the water is gone, as well.
Things now look much the same at Memorial Medical Center were 45 bodies were discovered. It's now empty, the streets empty as well. And Methodist Hospital, once only accessible by boat is no longer an island. Progress certainly.
But for any other city, it would be a terrible disaster if half the city was under water. Only in New Orleans today can that seem like good news.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, a visit to a small Mississippi town, or, really a visit to a town that once was. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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