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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Authorities Investigate New Orleans Nursing Home Deaths; Ophelia Creates Problems For Carolinas; FEMA Still Failing Disaster Victims?
Aired September 15, 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.
Anderson, good to see you.
The president says he gets it. And tonight, he promised to spend a great deal of money to fix it, though it's not altogether clear where the money's coming from.
More from Anderson in a moment on the reception the president's speech is getting in New Orleans.
First, a quick look at the speech and the other pieces of business on another busy day. Speaking from the French Quarter tonight, President Bush promised to pay most of the cost of rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, price tag, $200 billion or more.
Also today, another measure of the economic damage done, 68,000 people filing unemployment claims due to the hurricane, pushing the overall number of applications up by the largest amount in nearly a decade.
Today, the mayor of New Orleans laid out a plan for repopulating the city, letting people come back. He expects about 182,000 people will be allowed back in their homes and businesses during the coming weeks.
Water is flowing out of New Orleans faster than expected. The Army Corps of Engineers now says large areas of the city could be dry within five days. And perhaps the entire city could be pumped out by the beginning of next month.
Some people in Mississippi who are homeless tonight because of Hurricane Katrina will soon have a new place to stay. The governor in Mississippi, Haley Barbour, says the state has secured the use of a small 490-passenger cruise ship for the hurricane survivors. It will be docked off Mobile, Alabama.
And, as it has nearly every day so far, the death toll climbed yet again, 558 in Louisiana, 791 in all. Fourteen at the Lafon Nursing Home in New Orleans.
Their story and that of dozens more at a hospital and another nursing home involve people who could not fend for themselves. Others decided their fate. Those who did, rightly or wrongly, legally or not, have been scattered by the storm, making this story we unravel bit by bit.
Tonight, two more pieces, beginning with CNN's Jonathan Freed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Lafon Nursing Home was cut off by floodwater. The water never made it inside, but it still cost 14 people their lives by cutting off their escape route.
They were the ones who hadn't been evacuated, and they died waiting for rescue. All around this place, inside and out, there are signs of how tortured a wait it must have been, wheelchairs, walkers, pillows lying around, echoes of elderly lives interrupted. CNN reached Sister Augustine McDaniels (ph), the home's administrator, by phone, and she confirmed that people died before she was evacuated to Texas.
For now, the questions still outweigh the answers. Why wasn't everyone evacuated? Could there be criminal charges? We know the bodies were taken to this morgue with all the other bodies from the New Orleans area about an hour outside of the city. And some other pieces of the puzzle are now coming together. CNN has learned where they took some of the survivors, to a nursing home in Houma, about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans.
The director of the Chateau Terban (ph) health care facility told CNN they welcome and treat the evacuees just like they would anyone else moving in there, although mindful of the stress they've been through.
The days after the storm also saw a frantic search for people who were known to have been at Lafon, like this Internet posting for Eva Davis (ph). CNN reached her son-in-law and confirmed she is now recuperating in a hospital in Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREED: Now, Aaron, I spoke to Eva Davis's son-in-law less than an hour ago, and I asked how she was doing. He said that she had suffered from a condition where she wasn't able to speak very clearly, put words together, and that, before all this had happened, she was feeling just fine and able to articulate her thoughts well.
And he says that her daughter is by her side right now in Houston and that the condition has returned because of what she's gone through in the last couple of weeks. And her daughter says that -- that she can't understand what she's saying now -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jon, if you know, was there a point from, let's say Sunday night, before the storm, to the point where the people were evacuated, where rescuers of any sort, state, federal, local, anybody, came to the nursing home and offered assistance at all?
FREED: We are trying to find that out. As you know, some MREs were found there, those meals ready to eat. There are questions about how they got there. We have reached out to various organizations, the National Guard and FEMA today, trying to put together some kind of a timeline, but, so far, we haven't been able to piece it together, at least not in a form that we feel we can go with -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jon, good work today -- Jonathan Freed out of our Chicago bureau, who's down in New Orleans tonight.
Now to the hospital where 45 bodies were found. There, the power went out on Monday when Katrina hit. It would be Thursday before the rescue boats arrived. We still don't have a complete picture of how many people were already dead, who was critically ill and who might have survived if they were allowed on boats. We don't yet precisely know who made what decision, if there were ready or any alternatives available.
We suspect it must have been horrible any way you look at it. We more than suspect it. We know it.
Bill Quigley was there. He's a law professor at Loyola University who was volunteering at the hospital at the time, Memorial Hospital. His wife is an oncology nurse there, and they were among the last to be evacuated.
Bill, it's good to see you.
BILL QUIGLEY, PROFESSOR, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY: Thank you.
BROWN: You got there Sunday. You left on Thursday. So, that's the window we're talking about here.
Was there a -- was it clear to you that the rescue teams, state, local, or federal, knew there were patients in the hospital and knew that people had to get out of that hospital?
QUIGLEY: Well, I think that it was clear that, at a certain point, that people knew. But, early on, we were not really sure that the state, local and federal authorities knew that there were nearly 2,000 people in this hospital, including several hundred patients.
BROWN: There were 2,000 people in the hospital on Sunday?
QUIGLEY: I think there were 2,000 people ultimately in the hospital. It may have included a couple of hundred neighbors who swam to the hospital and got into the hospital in order to be able to survive the waters, the rising waters.
BROWN: There was a point where helicopters made a light food and water drop, correct?
QUIGLEY: That's correct. They did that a couple times. But those were very, very modest amounts of food and water, you know, an amount I could carry in my arms.
BROWN: Could they have -- is there a helipad on the roof? Could they have landed there to take the most vulnerable people out?
QUIGLEY: Absolutely. There is a helipad. And a lot of people were ultimately evacuated on helicopters.
But the evacuation order and the decision to evacuate came very early on Tuesday. And, as you already noted, most of the people in the hospital did not get out until Thursday. And, during most of that time, there was no electricity at all in the hospital. There was no running water. There was no food for a couple of the last days we were there. The elevators didn't work. The lights didn't work. The machines that people depend on for their life-sustaining -- they didn't -- they weren't working as well.
So, it was a tremendously traumatic time for the patients. There were patients who were put in the hospital parking garage one night, because, at 85, 86 degrees in the New Orleans night, they were 20 degrees cooler on the parking lot ramp than they were in the hospital itself.
BROWN: Was there a sense of panic?
QUIGLEY: There were various times that people broke down and cried in terror and panic, and that the nurses, the doctors, the aides, the families, the security guards, the maintenance workers -- people worked around the clock trying to preserve life. People were fanning people 24 hours a day with pieces of cardboard.
People were manually pressing oxygen into people's lungs. But all -- during the time that the -- the overhead sound system was working, you would hear code blue on floor three.
BROWN: Yes.
QUIGLEY: Code three on four, on five. So, we knew people were dying. There were bodies in the hospital. We knew what was going on.
And people were trying desperately to stop it, but they just didn't get the help.
BROWN: Just a final question, because everybody in these sorts of things wants to find villains and wants to see it in very clear black-and-white terms, I have said before here. Is there any doubt in your mind that the people in charge, the doctors, the nurses -- excuse me -- the people who were staying with the patients, working with the patients, did everything they could to keep those people alive as long as they could?
QUIGLEY: There's no doubt that the people in the hospital, patients doctors, nurses, family, everybody worked heroically, courageously to save those folks. But they couldn't do it alone. They couldn't get anybody out. They needed boats and helicopters, and they didn't come.
BROWN: Bill, your -- the story of your getting out is a story in itself. And we will try and get to that another day. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. QUIGLEY: Thank you.
BROWN: Bill Quigley was in Memorial Hospital in New Orleans from Sunday night, Anderson, until Thursday, when they finally evacuated. That's the city the president arrived in today.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It certainly is. And we have heard stories like that, I mean, the story of Charity Hospital as well, where they were hand-pumping air into people's lungs hour after hour after hour, waiting for buses to come, waiting to get evacuated, so many stories, Aaron, that we are going to be hearing. I think, as floodwaters go down, more and more stories come out.
Just a short time ago, President Bush was here in the French Quarter. I'm at the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon Street. He was just a few blocks away, made a speech to the nation. Here's some of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To every person who has served and sacrificed in this emergency, I offer the gratitude of our country.
And, tonight, I also offer this pledge of the American people. Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know, there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans. And this great city will rise again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, the bottom line, $200 billion or more, including worker recovery accounts to pay for job training and child care, creation of a special low-tax emergency zone for the Gulf, forgiveness on student loans, and a lot more.
President Bush wasn't the only politician speaking today. The mayor here of New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin, also held a press conference, announcing he was reopening the city, trying to get as many as 180,000 people here in the next several days and next several weeks. The question is, is it too much, too soon? Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAY NAGIN (D), MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: It's a good day in New Orleans. The sun is shining. We're bringing New Orleans back.
COOPER: Mayor Ray Nagin announcing that his city is on the upswing.
NAGIN: We're re opening up the city and almost 200,000 residents will be able to come back and get this city going once again.
COOPER: A remarkable statement, considering what the mayor said just about two weeks ago when he lashed out at the Federal and state response to his city's crisis.
NAGIN: Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too dog gone late. Get off your asses and let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
COOPER: So, is New Orleans ready to reopen? There are positive signs. Flood waters are fast receding. The Army Corps of Engineers says water is dropping by more than a foot a day.
Some areas like Algiers and New Orleans west bank have power and running water, which the mayor says is suitable for drinking. Mayor Nagin also says he's speaking with Wal-Mart about opening a store in the convention center so newly returned residents will have somewhere to shop. He also says despite the violence and looting witnessed in Katrina's aftermath, the city is the safest it's been in years.
NAGIN: The bad guys, I think they've been rooted out and dealt with accordingly. As they come back -- as they think about coming back to the city, let me just remind them of a couple of things. Our police department has a serious, even more invested bond with this city and they're not taking any crap.
COOPER: But despite the tough talk, it's going to be tough going in the big easy. There are no schools that are open. Forty to 50 percent of the city is still under water and a new EPA report says that water contains dangerous amounts of bacteria and lead.
But none of that is deterring the mayor's plan or altering his ambitious schedule. He says residents of Algiers will return on Monday. The central business district and uptown will be open later in the week and by September 26, the French quarter will be open for business. The mayor says the city is ready to regroup, ready to start again.
NAGIN: Because I envision us building an incredible city that's so livable, so unique with all the New Orleans wonderful things that everybody appreciates, that everybody's going to want to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: The question is, is it possible so soon? We will be looking into that in the days ahead.
Two local hospitals, Touro Infirmary and Children's Hospital, said today they would be open for emergency services to those who return to New Orleans -- Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, progress. We will see how it plays out.
Tropical Storm Ophelia remains on the map, not as strong as she was last night, but strong enough to give you a headache.
Rob Marciano has been on the scene for the last couple of days. He's in Salter Path, North Carolina, tonight; 75-mile-an-hour winds are with him. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): When the sun finally came out and the winds died down, Ophelia showed her unexpected power. A storm surge of at least eight feet, driven by Ophelia, tore off much of this fish processing house in Salter Path, North Carolina, docks in the same inlet pulled from their moorings, restaurant roofs torn off and walls punctured, similar to the damage in Biloxi, on a much smaller scale, but still devastating.
Winds of up to 75 miles per hour damaged homes and businesses and took down trees and power lines. Some coastal communities flooded up to three feet high after driving rains dumped nearly 18 inches of water.
GOV. MIKE EASLEY (D), NORTH CAROLINA: They, of course, fill the rivers and the rivers come up through the bridges and block the highways. The problem is -- and we need people to pay careful attention to this -- it will change as to which highways are blocked.
MARCIANO: Two hundred thousand homes lost power overnight. More than 80,000 people are still in the dark. Downgraded to a tropical storm now, Ophelia is still hanging out off the Outer Banks of North Carolina after three days of punishing weather. The National Guard is already evacuating those with special needs and 61 shelters have opened across the state.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From everything I saw yesterday, with the Sprint trucks and the massive amount of Dominion Power trucks that have already come here, National Guard trucks, I feel like they're overpreparing just to make sure that they don't get caught.
MARCIANO: And after what happened on the Gulf Coast states, federal officials aren't taking any chances.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: As a matter of fact, there are 250 FEMA staffers on the ground. I'm told, for a Category 1 hurricane, that's a lot. So, they're not taking any chances on that measure.
But I will tell you what. For a Cat 1 hurricane, the damage you see behind me is more indicative of a stronger hurricane than that. This is from the storm surge that is on the bay side of these businesses. On the backside of all these businesses -- this is a restaurant called the Crab Shack. It's a famous place here, an institution, great food there.
And then there's a wave runner rental and then a number of seafood retail outlets. On the backside of these, all have docks. All have fishing boats come in, unloading their fresh catch. All those docks are gone, all the cinder block walls blown in from what is at least an eight-foot storm surge. And all this garbage is either from the surge or from the -- what the owners came in earlier today to clean out, an unbelievable sight to see, Aaron, a Category 1 hurricane. But -- and on the bay side. That's what's startling. We said this was going to happen, but to see it for my own eyes is unbelievable and listen to people talk about it, how the waters were rising on what is typically a very flat, very calm piece of water. It acted much like an angry ocean last night. That's for sure -- Aaron.
BROWN: We're glad everybody got through it as safely as they did. There's plenty of damage, but it could have been worse.
Thank you, Rob Marciano, in North Carolina tonight.
Coming up, in their own words, painful words, the 911 calls on the day the hurricane hit in New Orleans.
But, first, at about a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other headlines of the day.
Christi Paul again joins us from Atlanta.
Christi, good evening.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron.
Chief justice nominee John Roberts finished three days of public testimony today, as you know, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was not an ideologue. Senior Democrats say that Roberts was not forthcoming about his personal and legal opinions.
And three plague-infected mice have disappeared from a lab in New Jersey where vaccines against bioterrorism are developed. But officials contend they are not a public health threat. The FBI, federal and state authorities are investigating.
And get this. After 12 years on the run, the woman accused of a multimillion-dollar casino heist has given herself up. Heather Tallchief was wanted for stealing an armored truck from the Circus Circus Casino in 1993. In surrendering, she said she wanted her son to have a normal life.
If she's behind bars, it will be interesting to see how normal it is, Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it depends, I guess, on how they've been living.
Christi, thank you. We will see you in about a half-an-hour.
Much more on the program still tonight, starting at the very beginning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): These sounds we know. And these...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If there any way you can get to the roof if need be?
BROWN: These, we could only imagine until today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine people.
BROWN: The first calls for help, the first of a flood.
Also tonight, another call for help.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a little boy. We have no idea where their parents are.
BROWN: Tonight, we know.
Later, he says the federal government is leaving his city high and dry.
BEN MORRIS, MAYOR OF SLIDELL, LOUISIANA: I am so pissed off about it that I can't see straight.
BROWN: Is FEMA still falling down on the job, or are people expecting too much?
And, in so many pictures, a city in the final moments before everyone left.
From New York and New Orleans, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency," with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
COOPER: Well, as the levees broke and the waters rose here in New Orleans, it forced people up with it, into their attics and onto their roofs. Today, the New Orleans Police released the tapes of the desperate calls those people made for help, calls to 911.
Here's CNN's Sean Callebs.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Katrina punished the heart of New Orleans, 911 calls began to stream in, like this call from a young woman named Shawntal (ph), who was trapped in the highest point of her home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're stuck in the attic, me and my little sister here and my mommy. And we have got water in the whole house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there any way you can get to the roof ma'am? Because they are trying to get everybody to higher ground until we can get out there? We're trying our best.
CALLEBS: It wasn't just flooding. With electricity cut off and powerful winds decimating the city, some gas lines began to rupture.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My brother just checked the valve that we just opened, because we're up on the second floor, so we just opened the bottom just to let some -- I just want to know if there's is a little gas leak, as long as we kind of let fresh air in will, you know everybody be alright.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. I think if you let fresh air in, everybody's going to be all right.
CALLEBS (on camera): Throughout the night, 911 calls poured in, many coming from this heavily damaged section of New Orleans called Ward Nine. For many frantic residents, their only outside contact with emergency officials was a woman on the other end of the phone who identified herself as operator 16. At the height of the storm, the operator could do little, but serve as a calming voice and encourage people trapped in these homes to somehow try and make it to the roof.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there any way you can get to the roof, if need be?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know if we can make it or not.
CALLEBS (voice-over): The number of people trapped by rising water in some homes was staggering.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many in there inside the location with you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 people.
CALLEBS: In one case, among those caught by flood water and fearing for survival, a disabled woman and a baby on a medical device.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got a handicapped girl, and I got a baby that's on a heart machine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you have a handicapped son?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a handicapped sister.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have an attic ma'am inside your home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And, of course, Aaron, after a while, the cell towers no longer worked. Cell phones wouldn't work. Of course, land lines were flooded as well. Those calls just simply stopped coming in.
BROWN: There must have -- there must be hours of tape like that, though. COOPER: Yes. There must be. I mean, some people will say, well, look, those people were told to evacuate. But then, you know, you got to remember, the place they were going to evacuate to was the Convention Center and the Superdome. And we all knew what awaited them there.
BROWN: My goodness. Thank you.
Katrina, it seems to us, reinforces an iron law of any disaster. As it widens in scope, humanity shrinks to the bare and sometimes bitter essentials. If you're going to shake your fist at nature or at bureaucracy in the face of nature, save it for this, that moment when saving a home becomes saving a memento, when saving one life means sacrificing another, or the essential and the sometimes bitter quest not to locate a loved one, but simply to find their remains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDA HYMEL, SEARCHING FOR BROTHER: It's just awful. It's awful. I can't explain the feeling in my stomach, in my heart. Sometimes, it's -- it hurts to know that he is over there by himself. It's just awful.
BROWN (voice-over): Every day, Linda Hymel and her husband, Rick (ph), work the phones. They call the disaster mortuary teams. They call FEMA, the Red Cross. They even call the local radio stations.
HYMEL: You can't tell me? Can anybody -- can anybody tell me?
All these numbers they give out, either they ring forever, you get disconnected, or there's no information available, nothing. I mean, it's like a brick wall.
BROWN: It is enough to make you give up. But you can't give up when you're searching for your brother, who you know has died in the storm and whose body you are determined to find.
HYMEL: Every waking moment, I'm thinking -- I'm looking at pictures, and I'm trying to think, what can I do next? Can I picket, get a sign, "Help me find my brother"?
BROWN: She's filled out the required eight-page form describing him. He was 6 foot tall, had a scar above his lip and one behind his knee. He was flat-footed. He was missing a tooth. She's told authorities all of that, and they've told her to wait.
HYMEL: No time limit. So it's just -- we just wait?
BROWN: And wait, she has, until today.
HYMEL: All I want is to bring him home, have a memorial, bury him, grieve, and then try to put some closure on this. We need to get him home.
BROWN: Today, Linda stopped waiting and went looking.
HYMEL: This is where he was. This is where he was.
BROWN: The small houses and the fishing camps here used to be along the Irish Bayou, northeast of central New Orleans. The family escaped before the storm. Her brother stayed behind to take care of things. He was a carpenter, a jack-of-all-trades.
HYMEL: He tried to stay behind and watch my momma's house, as he always did.
BROWN: But Katrina crushed the house. Friends found him dead four days later and flagged down the National Guard.
HYMEL: He was probably floating in the water, you know, with the rubble. And they told them to move him to the bathtub, so they could find him.
BROWN: The friends wrapped her brother in a sheet and left him in the rubble in a bathtub. But Linda today finds no bathtub and finds no body. Today, all Linda Hymel can find of her brother is a pair of shoes.
HYMEL: And it's so hard. I saw his tennis shoes. If only he was in them, you know? This is really difficult, really difficult.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: It doesn't seem like much to ask, does it?
Just ahead, the pictures of a city that tell the story of the horrible moment when it became a ghost town.
And we will also go back to North Carolina to see what Ophelia has in mind as it goes from hurricane to tropical storm.
This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The scene tonight in Salter Path, North Carolina, where Ophelia, occasionally a hurricane, Category 1, occasionally a tropical storm, is just sort of parked out there for the last several days, making a mess of things. Bonnie Schneider is tracking the storm in Atlanta, and she joins us now -- Bonnie.
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Aaron, this is where Salter Path is, as you can see. It's a thin strip of land here along the Outer Banks. So that's one of the reasons we saw so much storm surge, was there is water pretty much surrounding that area.
Now, just to let you know, we have some updates for you. Our latest advisory now says that Ophelia's still a tropical storm, but the tropical storm warnings that were going on now for areas northward, towards Virginia into the Chesapeake are now discontinued. But there still is a tropical storm warning in effect from the North Carolina-Virginia border down through Cape Lookout, because even though Ophelia is now on the move, a slow move, an erratic movement to the east-northeast, we're still watching for those strong winds to move through the area. And according to the track, luckily the storm will eventually pull off to the northeast, even by tomorrow.
But really, the next question is, how far close in to New England will it go? If it gets close enough, we could see tropical storm conditions now for the New England area, which includes Massachusetts, the Cape, and the islands.
And this tropical storm watch has just been extended further south toward Rhode Island. So we'll be watching this in the days to come.
Unfortunately, Aaron, Ophelia not out of our hair just yet. We'll still be watching this storm to move to the north and east as we work our way into the weekend.
BROWN: It's amazing how consumed, it seems, we've been for the better part of a month now on all of this. Thank you, Bonnie, very much.
Slidell, Louisiana, a town just 30 miles from New Orleans but a world away, its leaders believe, when it comes to getting federal help. Truth be told, no one is very patient right now in Louisiana, not in Slidell and not in the towns around it. Everybody wants everything done this instant. Which is something to keep in mind. Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what much of Slidell, Louisiana, looks like. Eighty percent of homes in the city east of New Orleans are damaged or destroyed; half of the city's 30,000 residents now homeless. Hundreds lined up Thursday for food stamps.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Slidell area is one of the hardest-hit areas over here.
CARROLL: So much devastation and, yet, many here say they are being ignored by the agency that's supposed to help -- FEMA.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They turned our case over three times. I had to keep registering.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The help line is not up. And all I wanted to know, you know, was, where is a house to live? What can I do?
CARROLL: The city's mayor, Ben Morris, just as angry.
BEN MORRIS, MAYOR OF SLIDELL, LOUISIANA: I am so pissed off about it that I can't see straight.
CARROLL: Morris says his anger comes from FEMA's broken promises, like when the agency assured him trailers would be sent to house Slidell's homeless.
(on camera): What's happened with that request?
MORRIS: Gone.
CARROLL: What do you mean gone?
MORRIS: Nothing's happened.
CARROLL: What do you mean nothing has happened?
MORRIS: Nothing has happened.
CARROLL (voice-over): FEMA has released a statement, saying: "We have contact with the mayor and know he's frustrated. We wish we could have met all their needs already, but these things take considerable time and effort."
Perhaps, the mayor says, there would be more effort if they saw for themselves just how bad things are here.
(on camera): From the air, you really get a better sense of the devastation that the mayor was talking about. When you look down there, it's literally destruction just as far as the eye can see.
MORRIS: This is the greatest catastrophe that's occurred, natural disaster, that's ever occurred in the United States. And we're right in the middle of it. And what we're saying, all right, guys, get out of your hotel rooms. Come down here. Sleep in your car. Sleep in a tent. Sleep on the floor with us and give us some help.
CARROLL: He says Slidell has waited long enough.
Jason Carroll, CNN, Slidell, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In a tragedy like this, in which so many lives are lost, so many families broken, the bright spots shine more brightly. Tonight we're happy to report on a reunion. Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two days before Hurricane Katrina struck, Shantell Antione had to undergo kidney dialysis. Her husband had to take her. So they left their 3-year-old son, David, with a baby-sitter. Then Sunday morning, hours before the storm hit, Shantell couldn't get to her son. The couple had no car and evacuated to the Superdome.
What they didn't know was David had been taken to the Superdome as well. They knew only that their son was missing.
SHANTELL ANTIONE, DAVID'S MOTHER: I was scared. I was -- I didn't know what to -- it was just -- I can't even explain what I was feeling in words. DORNIN: Shantell, because of her medical condition, was quickly evacuated again with her husband to a Baton Rouge hospital before the storm. They now know the little boy was taken to the Houston Astrodome. They don't know how or when. They still don't know what happened to the baby-sitter. But relief workers in Houston soon found David all by himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come here, buddy. There we go.
DORNIN: Six days ago, little David appeared on local television in Houston.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a nice personality. He's good to get along with, but he's kind of (INAUDIBLE), but he's playing with the other children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he seem to respond to the name David, or do you think he's probably -- that's probably not actually his name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He responds to it.
DORNIN: The Antiones never saw that. Then last Saturday night, on a continuing CNN segment created to help reunite missing loved ones, someone from Child Protective Services in Houston appealed on behalf of David.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a little boy, maybe 2- or 3-year- old, and we're calling him David. But he's been with us since last Friday, and we have no idea where their parents are.
DORNIN: A woman identifying herself as David's grandmother called the Center for Exploited and Missing Children. The center called the Antiones on Monday.
ANTIONE: When I went, I said, what's the matter? He said, they found our baby, they found our baby.
DORNIN: Finally today, three days later, at the Lafayette, Louisiana airport, Shantell anxiously awaits her son's arrival from Houston. She waits on the tarmac.
ANTIONE: Oh!
DORNIN: All smiles, David, who has been separated from his mother for two and a half weeks, wants to be held by the case worker, Jeffrey Collins (ph), who has spent more than a week with the boy.
ANTIONE: Oh, you want to be with Mr. Jeffrey?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up, man? You home now, buddy. You're home now. You're home now, big man.
ANTIONE: He's confused right now.
DORNIN: His confusion lasts only a minute. Then mom is the only one David wants. ANTIONE: Oh, you want momma now, huh?
DORNIN: Still, Shantell has no car. So we drive them to their new place in Lafayette. The little boy everyone in Houston thought was so painfully shy begins to chatter in his mother's arms.
For the first time, the little boy sees his new home. And next, hungry after a long trip, it's time for a snack with a little motherly urging.
ANTIONE: Eat the rest of your burger. All right. That's a big old boy.
DORNIN: Then the reunion with daddy, who has plenty of plans.
DAVID ANTIONE, REUNITED WITH SON: Go run in the park. Everything. Go have fun. Go play football. Go play basketball. We're going to do everything. Everything. Everything that a father and son got to do.
DORNIN: His parents don't think David will remember his adventure. But they will.
ANTIONE: It's really hard to think back all the way to age 3. But I will tell him the story.
DORNIN: The Antiones received help to get this apartment in Lafayette. They're in a new place, they have few belongings, no jobs, and no idea what the future will bring. But right now that really doesn't matter, because he who was lost has been found.
ANTIONE: It makes it all right. All good.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: CNN's Rusty Dornin.
Still to come on the program, the words on the walls and the stories that they tell.
Also tonight, the flood after the flood. Coping with all the clothing. We'll take a break. This is a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT: State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: In the terrible days after Katrina struck, no one in the city knew who to contact for help, how to get word to families or even when to get basic information -- where to get it. For weeks, New Orleans seemed a victim of a cruel breakdown in communications. But as Ed Lavandera reports, these walls did talk. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New Orleans is a city frozen in time. Newspaper headlines warn of Hurricane Katrina's looming strike. What happened next is told in snapshots.
A canoe run aground in the street. A wheelchair abandoned. You see this and wonder what happened to the people who were trapped in these moments.
Then there are the notes and messages left.
(on camera): This says, we left. Please do not break down our door. Doesn't leave a name or who might have left it. But the instructions are clear.
(voice-over): Across the street, you can see that neighbors were looking out for each other.
(on camera): Because here it says, Mr. Charlie, they made us leave but we have your bird and the keys to your house. It doesn't say when it was written, but perhaps they were taking care of the house here for their neighbor.
If you look here, there's a deck of cards and an empty carton of cigarettes. Even a bottle of Maalox.
(voice-over): We started noticing these messages about a week ago.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll check this note.
(voice-over): Army lieutenant Nick Dougherty told us he finds notes every day.
LT. NICK DOUGHERTY, US ARMY: A lot of notes. People just leave notes.
I'm out of here. Water going down. Back to get dogs. Please save these notes. Godspeed. Thank you.
LAVANDERA: This is a city without its people, but their voices still echo.
Inside the Lindy Boggs Medical Center you can sense the desperation in the hallways, the darkness and the unexpected.
DOUGHERTY: Oh. Something smells horrible.
LAVANDERA: A soiled bed in the middle of a hallway. The notes on the walls.
DOUGHERTY: You can see that -- you know, when you're look around in here, just the state of the way everything is.
LAVANDERA: The searchers think of what it must have been like.
DOUGHERTY: See some of the stuff they wrote on here. RN. Transplant survivor. Escape from Lindy. Katrina survivor. New waterfront property for sale. Call your realtor. At least they had a sense of humor, huh? LAVANDERA: In the midst of all this, perhaps humor is what's need. Like this image near our hotel.
(on camera): We've been driving around this part of the French Quarter for days, and every time we make our way out of it, we have to navigate around this beautiful Mercedes, essentially, which has just been left in the middle of the street. We haven't seen anybody come up to it, anybody come up and look at it or touch it. The door is open. Inside it looks fine.
(voice-over): This city will slowly return to normal. It will be cleaned of these memories. But for now, the reminders of how people suffered and survived are everywhere.
Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Ahead on the program tonight, a face that will break your heart and then another and then another. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT: State of Emergency.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Still ahead tonight, an embarrassment of riches. The flood aid that threatens to drown those it's meant to help.
First, coming up towards a quarter to the hour, a little past that, time to check the headlines of the day. Christi Paul again in Atlanta. Good evening, Ms. Paul.
PAUL: Good evening. Good to see you, Aaron.
Violence in Iraq, actually, claimed another 30 lives today, pushing the two-day death toll above 180. Iraqi president Jalal Talabani appeared at the United Nations summit to pledge his country's commitment to becoming, quote, "a partner in the international order."
Also at the U.N. today, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon told Palestinians that they have a right to freedom and to their own country. He said that after Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza. It was now the Palestinians' turn to show their desire for peace.
And the United States wants to buy $100 million worth of avian flu vaccine. That's of course known as the bird flu. The Department of Health and Human Services said it wants enough of the experimental shots to inoculate 20 million people against the disease that has sparked fears of a global epidemic.
That's all from Atlanta. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: Christi, thank you.
Just ahead, the flood of good intentions that came in Katrina's wake. NEWSNIGHT'S Beth Nissen reports from Kild (ph), Mississippi. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT: State of Emergency. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back. We are live in New Orleans, the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon Street -- a very different Bourbon Street than we've ever seen before on other trips to New Orleans.
Whatever reservations there have been about the official response to Hurricane Katrina, there can be no doubt that ordinary Americans are eager to help, sometimes perhaps too eager. Here's "NEWSNIGHT's" Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's all back here. All clothes.
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Emergency response coordinators here call it the new flood: Bags, boxes, truckloads of donated clothing.
LEONARD DENNING, EMERGENCY OPERATIONS VOLUNTEER: Tons and tons of clothes. Tons of clothes. I've seen stuff from New York, Michigan, California, Colorado, Florida.
RAYMOND BROWN, EMERGENCY OPERATION VOLUNTEER: As you can see, we have a lot of clothes. All this platform up here, all the way back, is just clothes.
NISSEN: Most of it unsorted, unmarked as to type -- women's, men's, children -- or size.
STAFF SGT. TIM MCDANIELS, U.S. NATIONAL GUARD: A lot of people, I know their hearts are in the right place, but they're dumping six different types of clothes in one bag, and it's taking three or four people to sort that bag out.
NISSEN: Workers are at a premium, and so is warehouse space. Most warehouses like this one were damaged in the storm. There's no place to sort the clothes or store them.
RICHARD SHEPARD, EMERGENCY OPERATIONS: We don't have a place to put them to figure out what they are so that we can figure out where to send them. That's the biggest alligator we're trying to wrestle.
NISSEN: And every day, more bags, more boxes come in.
DAVE CASH, LOGISTICS COORDINATOR: It almost becomes another disaster in itself, trying to deal with the overburden of unneeded items and how to get rid of those.
NISSEN: The flood of clothing is a major problem for smaller emergency centers, too, like this church in Diedel (ph), Mississippi. At the church school, clothing donations block the outside exit ramps, the doorways and hallways, and have swamped the meeting hall.
KEN BARBER, PARISHIONER: Until I get these clothes out to get this cleaned up, I could possibly use this for an office for our church or someone that needs it, could be FEMA, could be Red Cross, whatever needs.
NISSEN: Emergency workers here too are too busy to wade through the sea of cotton, denim and polyester blend. So four little girls from the church are doing their best.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can put that with the long sleeves. It looks kind of wintry.
MELAINA HENDERSON, AGE 10: Most of the people that live in Diedel (ph), Mississippi have what they need. People have donated a lot, and it's very special to us, and we thank them. But some of it needs to go different, or wherever else they can take it to.
NISSEN: Back to warehouses, which are needed for incoming shipments of cleaning supplies, building supplies. Out of necessity many of these clothing donations may become what they look like here -- garbage.
CASH: After every disaster, a lot of the clothing that people send in ends up in a landfill.
NISSEN: Emergency coordinators are trying to avoid that, trying not to discourage generosity. Just redirect it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God bless you. Keep on coming. But bring food this time, no more clothes. I ain't lying.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, Kild (ph), Mississippi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So much compassion.
Coming up, the missing faces of Katrina. The young smiles so many parents long to see. This is a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT: State of Emergency," from New Orleans and New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Earlier in the hour, we told you about a family reunion. It was, I suppose, not a perfect ending. The family had lost everything. But it was the best possible ending at a moment when so many endings are still unwritten.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): These are the children of the storm, a staggering number of faces. More than 1,700 names have been compiled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
These snapshots don't tell us much. They don't tell us what these kids wanted to be when they grow up, who could pitch a fastball, who could carry a tune. But they do sometimes tell us something.
By far, most of the missing are from Louisiana -- New Orleans, for the most part. The floodwaters still haven't given up all their secrets. Families are still splintered across the country.
They are from Mississippi and Alabama, too, of course, places where Katrina smashed entire towns.
The storm played no favorites. The missing come in all colors and ages. There are many boys and many girls. But the overwhelming majority are black. Their pictures offer glimpses of better times. A toothy grin, a toothless grin. A first photo. A graduation.
They have names, of course. Gabrielle and Matthew, Paul and Latara. Each name carefully chosen once by a proud parent, each name now reduced to a painfully simple description. Jordan, age 7, brown eyes, height and weight unknown.
For some, there's a bit more to go on. A gap between the two front teeth. Pierced ears. Sometimes wears glasses. A mole on the forehead. Her friends call her Kevy.
Occasionally, there is enough information to imagine what they might have endured. Last seen at the Superdome. Last seen at the Astrodome. Last seen fleeing a neighbor's rooftop.
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