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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Louisiana Authorities Investigate Nursing Home and Hospital Deaths; New Orleans Rescue Teams Still Finding Survivors
Aired September 16, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency," with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
Anderson, good evening to you.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Aaron.
Imagine what was knowing in store for New Orleans, only to discover that nobody was listening. Think of the anger then. Think of the heartache right now. In a moment, we will hear from a whistle- blower at FEMA who says the warnings were met by a deafening silence.
First, though, the wider picture from Aaron -- Aaron.
BROWN: Anderson, we begin with the best news possible under the circumstance, a source close to the recovery effort telling CNN to expect the number of fatalities in Louisiana to stay below 2,000, a horrible toll, but far less than the 10,000 that was feared early on.
So far, 579 bodies have been recovered in Louisiana, 218 in Mississippi.
The president today said other federal programs may have to be cut to pay for the rebuilding effort, no specifics, though, with outside experts and a fair number of Republicans in Congress predicting serious budget troubles ahead.
At the Astrodome in Houston, a shelter no more. The 779 hurricane survivors who remained there yesterday have either been moved to the Reliant Arena next door or relocated to more permanent housing.
The U.S. Coast Guard in southwest Louisiana is work to contain 44 oil spills caused by Katrina. Federal officials say the largest spills dumped more than 6.5 million gallons of oil into the local waters. And the Army Corps of Engineers say it is now halfway through draining the city of New Orleans. The city remains 40 percent flooded tonight. If all goes as planned, it will be entirely dry by early next month.
And, by that time, we might have a better picture of what led to the deaths of some of the city's oldest and sickest and most vulnerable. This is by no means a morbid fascination with us, no idle curiosity. What happened at two nursing homes and a hospital, the decisions made, the mistakes, all speak in a powerful voice about what this catastrophe was and remains.
Tonight, we begin at St. Rita's Nursing Home and the rescue that might have been.
Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the owners of St. Rita's face charges of negligent homicide in the 34 deaths, more allegations that opportunities were missed to evacuate all the patients, this time by an ambulance driver who says she was assigned to evacuate the St. Bernard Parish nursing home on the Friday before the hurricane.
KAREN PERRY, AMBULANCE DRIVER: We had three ambulance ready to go in front of St. Rita's Nursing Home. But we were refused. They told us they didn't need us.
DORNIN: Karen Perry says she and two other paramedics were turned away by the owner, Sal Mangano.
K. PERRY: When he told me -- and he runs the place -- that he had it under control, we left.
DORNIN: David Waters of Central Florida News 13 interviewed Perry in Florida. Perry says she argued with Mangano. He told her they had their own evacuation plan with a private nonemergency medical pickup service called On Call. Repeated attempts to contact that pickup service have been unsuccessful. Even at the time, Perry says, the incident was very upsetting.
K. PERRY: I was as close to the front door as I am standing to you right now. And I could have gotten all of them out of there. Every single one could have been removed from that home.
DORNIN: While Karen Perry says she tried to rescue patient before the storm, her husband, Joe, is now in a Florida hospital for a snake bite while he was rescuing stranded people that Monday night after the storm, including 24 St. Rita's patients. Joe Perry says patients from St. Rita's were brought to him, transferred to his boat. He then ferried them to safety. One of the elderly women, he says, died in his arms.
JOE PERRY, RESCUE WORKER: As I said, I had her hand in mine. And that was about the last thing she said. Sir, it's hurting. Sir, it's hurting. I said, ma'am, I'm trying. I am really trying to get this. And when I look down, she was -- she was deceased.
DORNIN: The Manganos' attorney, Jim Cobb, has told CNN his clients are good people who risked their lives to save others and says there is another side to the story.
Still, a spokeswoman for Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti says the state has a strong case against St. Rita's, but declined to elaborate. And calls are coming in daily with tips about other nursing homes all being investigated by the attorney general's office.
Dr. Frank Minyard, coroner of Orleans Parish, says 27 bodies have been autopsied from nursing homes and hospitals. He says he doesn't know how many are from St. Rita's. None so far show signs drowning.
DR. FRANK MINYARD, CORONER, ORLEANS PARISH: You have got to remember, these bodies are badly, badly decomposed. It's Very difficult for us to find exactly what the cause of death is. We're probably going to call them all the same thing, Hurricane Katrina- related death.
DORNIN: Answering part of the question of how they died, but not why.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DORNIN: It's particularly difficult to find out why in this case, because, in St. Bernard's Parish, virtually everything was destroyed by the floodwaters. That's businesses, offices, residences. You call those places, you call the ambulance services and that sort of thing and it just rings and rings and rings. And it's very difficult to get ahold of anybody and confirm a lot of this information.
The state did tell me today they still haven't been able to find the evacuation plan that was in the parish. And they believe, at this point, basically, it's probably in paper that is so wet that they'll never be able to read it and it's destroyed and they'll never find out what that nursing home's evacuation plan was -- Aaron.
BROWN: In fairness to the people who are going to have to prosecute this case and in the fairness to the people who are going to have to defend their behavior, not having that plan could be a huge problem.
DORNIN: It could be a huge problem. And it's -- what's interesting is, I think the state is going to end up changing their policies, because they never required the parish to give them a copy of that evacuation plan. It was only filed locally. The state only had to be told, yes, they have a plan. So, certainly, in the future, they're going to be changing that policy and demanding to actually see that plan and have it on file.
BROWN: Rusty, thank you for your work today -- Rusty Dornin in the New Orleans area.
We suspect that, when all this is over, it won't be remembered for who paid the damages or who went to jail, if anyone does in the end. It will, however, be remembered if only because nothing about any of it can possibly be forgotten.
Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sink in deep mire where there's no standing. I'm coming to deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the first weekend after Katrina, Chaplain Hy McEnery was out navigating New Orleans' flooded streets, trying to find and minister to anyone who needed help.
(on camera): Why did you divide to go into the hospital?
HY MCENERY, CHAPLAIN: Well, we thought -- I thought -- I went in by myself, thinking that, if there was somebody still left living, I could find them and get them out.
FREED (voice-over): He says he entered Memorial Medical Center in downtown New Orleans and was stunned by what he saw.
MCENERY: It was like Dante's "Divine Comedy." It was like a picture of hell. It was -- it was gruesome.
FREED: McEnery found bodies, what would turn out to be 45 of them in all. He was with a journalist from the magazine "Christianity Today," who took pictures.
MCENERY: I went up to the second floor and that's when I began to see the deceased, some of them lying in their beds, some of them lying on the floor. And then I came to a room with a double door. And it was taped shut.
FREED: That room turned out to be the hospital's chapel.
MCENERY: The bodies had been covered. I mean, they weren't just laying out, strewn out in any kind of way. They had blankets or things covering them. But, of course, some of that stuff had blown off. The windows had been broken open. A lot of times, parts -- all or parts of their body were exposed. And there was great chaos, the scene of chaos and confusion.
FREED: McEnery had come upon the remnants of what doctors would later describe as a week without power, plumbing, and temperatures approaching 110 degrees. The hospital says most of the bodies were those of critically ill patients who died before they could be evacuated. And Memorial explains, the rest, between eight and 10 of them, were in the morgue before the storm.
(on camera): How long will it stay with you?
MCENERY: Oh, for the rest of my life, all these things.
FREED: McEnery says he now realizes he turned off his emotions to get through his ordeal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FREED: Now, Aaron, I -- Aaron, I asked the chaplain to tell me what kind of a feeling he was getting walking around inside that empty hospital. And he said it was giving off a vibe to him of tragedy and grief -- Aaron. BROWN: Well, it was certainly both of those. Jon, thank you -- Jonathan Freed with us again tonight.
Anderson, as you know, at Memorial, not only was it insufferably, unbearably hot. Literally, they had no food. Doctors were breaking into vending machines. There was very little water. It's not clear what caused the deaths of these people. That's just part of the puzzle that still has to be put together.
COOPER: Yes, I feel like there are so many puzzle and so many pieces scattered and scattered throughout the country, as the people who suffered them are, that still need to be put together, not only what happened at that hospital, what happened at Charity Hospital, where, I mean, they're still pumping water out of the morgue. There are 50 bodies, 50 people, inside that morgue who still need to be covered, so many stories still to be told, Aaron.
The why center on who and when. Who knew how bad it might (AUDIO GAP) did they know it, when did they know, and who ignored the warning?
Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff is being haunted by the past, by yet another accusation that he and the bosses at FEMA, an agency he oversees, ignored warnings of how bad Katrina would be.
LEO BOSNER, FEMA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST: We told these fellows that there was a killer hurricane heading right toward New Orleans.
FOREMAN: Leo Bosner is a longtime FEMA employee and an official of the employees union. He helps write the daily national situation update to inform government leaders in all departments of potential problems. Very early on the Saturday morning before the Monday Katrina hit, that report told Chertoff and his FEMA leaders in bold type about the state of emergency on the coast.
It said: "New Orleans is of particular concern because much of that city lies below sea level. If the hurricane winds blow from a certain direction, there are dire predictions of what may happen in the city."
Comparisons were noted with 1969's great killer storm Camille. But Bosner says the warning bell did not produce a strong reaction.
BOSNER: I remember a couple of fellows were saying, why aren't we doing more? What's going on?
We felt devastated. We felt let down. We had done our job, but the buses didn't do theirs.
FOREMAN: Homeland Security has admitted that, even with the monster storm closing in, Secretary Chertoff was working from his home, not his office, that Saturday. But, they say, he was in close contact with FEMA headquarters and with top man Mike Brown, now resigned, but, at the time, talking with the president.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm confident, Mike, that you and your team will do all you can to help the good folks in these affected states.
FOREMAN (on camera): The employees union, which has helped raise these latest accusations, has been unhappy for quite some time with the Bush administration's treatment of FEMA. So, politics could be at play.
(voice-over): But Secretary Chertoff is staying away from counter-accusations. He knows he'll have to answer all these charges before Congress anyway. So, his office is saying the focus now needs to be on the people who still need aid.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, we spoke with Leo Bosner earlier tonight. Here's some of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOSNER: In my opinion under the current -- unfortunately, under the current administration the whole top layer of FEMA, and I don't know, as far as I can tell the top layers of Homeland Security really don't have any emergency management experience.
COOPER: As early as December of 2004 you publicly said that Michael Brown wasn't up for the job. So it's not just a question of you now piling on this guy like a lot of other people seem to be doing now. What was it that you knew then? What do you think made him unqualified? What did you see back then in December?
BOSNER: I feel badly -- look, I have nothing personal against Mike Brown. I feel badly about the guy. But he took a job he was never trained for. The man was a lawyer.
COOPER: I want to read you something. You said all the way back in 1992, you said, FEMA's biggest problem is that too few people in the agency are trained to help in emergencies. You have a small number of people doing disaster work while the rest of us go back to our desks. We have good soldiers but crummy generals. No more than 30 percent of nearly 1,000 employees are trained in disaster relief services and those who are trained are underused. That was in 1992 and it sounds like what you're saying it sounds like nothing much has changed.
BOSNER: Well, actually, it's sort of deja vu all over again. A lot changed. That entire situation did change from 1993 to 1999 or the year 2000 under Mr. Witt's administration there. That situation was addressed. We did establish emergency support teams and emergency response teams. We did get some training for our people.
But what's actually happened is since the year 2000 and even since 9/11 of 2001 we have actually at FEMA in my view, personal view, we have actually slid backwards, we've given up and lost a lot of that staff training and expertise we developed in the '90s, and we have actually slid backward to the 1980s again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Aaron, I asked him if he gets in trouble for speaking out, as he has for quite some time now about FEMA. He says, no. As a matter of fact, his fellow employees and even some senior management people off the record say they appreciate what he's doing -- Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you.
You know, some day, we will -- we will figure out whether the head of FEMA ought to be a patronage job. Maybe it's OK to send a political appointee to be the ambassador to Belgium, but not run the emergency services agency, Anderson.
Just ahead, recovering not a body, but a very tough old survivor today. They're still finding people alive in New Orleans.
But, first, at about a quarter until after the hour, time once again to check on some of the other stories that made news today.
Christi Paul with us again from Atlanta -- Christi.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to run for reelection next year, despite some low approval ratings. He told a San Diego audience that he wanted to serve for seven years. Schwarzenegger became governor following an election that recalled Governor Gray Davis back in 2003, as you might remember.
Also, Tropical Storm Ophelia lost power as it moved away from North Carolina today, the good news. The eye of the storm never actually made landfall, despite soaking the Outer Banks with up to 18 inches of rain. It's expected to stay over the Atlantic Ocean as it travels north.
Vice President Dick Cheney will have surgery next week to remove an aneurysm in an artery behind his knee. His office said the aneurysm is not life-threatening. The procedure is elective. Cheney had has four heart attacks, triple-bypass surgery. And he has a pacemaker, we should note.
And another Guinness record fell this morning when Suresh Joachim became the world-record-holding television watcher. He stared at the tube, get this, for 69 hours, 48 minutes.
The real torture, Aaron, was the fact that he couldn't change the channel, in other words, no remote for you.
BROWN: Need more people like that, I think.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: Thank you.
PAUL: Sure.
BROWN: Should have a whole country of people like that.
Much more ahead on the program tonight, starting with the long road back and what's at the end of it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we need to get her a map, so she won't get lost.
BROWN (voice-over): She's a long way from the only home she ever had, making her way in a strange new world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bless your heart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to be all right. I'm going to be all right. I'm going to make it.
BROWN: Starting over.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think the president did the right thing in taking responsibility.
BROWN: Tonight, the last president on how this president is doing.
And their young lives were already on the line when the hurricane struck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very important that he gets his liver transplant now, because he is very sick.
BROWN: Waiting for a transplant now that the transplant center is gone.
From New York and New Orleans, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: It's been more than two weeks since Katrina hit New Orleans, prompting the largest exodus ever seen in the United States. Of those who remained in the city, some stayed to protect their homes or their pets, some because they had no choice. Authorities have dropped the idea of forced evacuations. But, every day, special teams go out to apply, well, a little diplomatic persuasion.
Here's CNN's Alex Quade.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX QUADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their job is usually to hunt down bad guys. Today, these special operations forces are going in by Black Hawk helicopter on a mission of mercy, searching for people still trapped by chance or choice. This New Orleans neighborhood is near City Park. It's relatively dry, but cut off, an island formed by canals and floodwater from Lake Pontchartrain.
SGT. BRIAN LAMPARD, SWAT MEMBER, NOPD: People who are here cannot walk out. The only way we can get to them is to be airlifted in. We are going to try to find any people that we have in here, relocate them to the landing zone here, and then airlift them out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to go in teams of four, two on each side of the street.
QUADE: These special agents mean business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys go left. Brian and I will go right.
QUADE: They are SWAT team members, immigration agents, and elite local law enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police. Anyone home?
QUADE: From Tampa, San Diego, New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police. Open up.
QUADE: Special agent Fred Stacy is from Washington, D.C.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our mission is to clear these residences, make sure there's no one there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police officers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, if there is someone there, help them evacuate.
QUADE (on camera): Do you think that, when they see with your M- 4s, that this is a persuasive tactic?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. It's -- the guns are just to -- in case we run into looters. It's not trying to intimidate anyone. It's for our protection and for the protection of the residents here.
QUADE: But 60-year-old holdout Brian Lightey (ph) got the message.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy came out of nowhere, camouflaged clothing. He had the biggest gun. It made the New Orleans police guns look like pop gun. You don't give that gentleman any lip whatsoever.
QUADE: Lightey stayed because he worried about his house. He and his two dogs survived by raiding his neighbors' fridges.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got all their bread, their fruits, their water, their batteries. So, we had seven houses to draw upon for hurricane supplies. I have got so much bread and so much fruit, I can't eat it all.
QUADE: Now he says he'll leave on an Army helicopter, knowing house is safe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am just pleased as punch that they're walking these streets, watching our property. And when you have armed guards with very large rifles walking the streets, I feel comfortable that, when I leave here, my house is going to be protected by those people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police officers. Anybody home?
QUADE: Authorities say there may be as many as a few thousand or as few as a handful of people like Brian Lightey still in their homes two weeks after the storm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police officers. Anybody home?
QUADE: Alex Quade, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We have talked a lot about the rebuilding of New Orleans. The president talked about it last night. But all along the Gulf Coast, there are cities and towns with names you never heard of that disappeared, not just the homes and the stores, but the culture, the way of life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Just south of New Orleans, along the Mississippi River, are the tiny fishing towns, the Cajun places with names like Diamond and Home Place, Happy Jack and Myrtle Grove. They were all along the river until Katrina hit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where the house was standing right here, my front door here.
BROWN: Joseph Lafont (ph) has lived in Myrtle Grove for 16 years. Home is still there, 200 feet from where it stood, before the storm came and lifted it away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was real sad for me. I never felt like that before. It's a bad feeling, like losing somebody.
BROWN: Lafont used to run the water pumps that kept the river at bay. But the river rose far faster than the pumps could turn it back. And when it did, the little towns and a way of life were washed away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, just what I was raised with. It's great for alligator hunting, deer hunting, trapping. I do it all down here. My whole life is going to come sort of slow now.
BROWN: Here's what the fishing business looks like now, a scrambled mess of beached boats and splintered trees and downed power lines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is like the halfway place. Everybody meets up right here. And everyone knew where to meet at. If you just said Myrtle Grove, you couldn't get lost.
BROWN: This is the place you hung out if you came to Myrtle Grove.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the place to stop and have a cold one when you're coming in. Just about everybody come from offshore, if they want to have a drink, that would be the spot they would stop.
BROWN: Despite it all, Lafont remains an optimist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things will get back better. We are going to do it right. We will make it better this time.
BROWN: But it's not going to happen quickly in this half-wild place, a noisy sort of place once that's just slowly waking up again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And since I have been here, it's been real quiet. You're starting to see a few birds, just starting to hear a few crickets.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: So, when we talk about rebuilding New Orleans, we also have to talk about rebuilding Myrtle Grove.
Just ahead on the program, it's nice to have some good news to report. And finding someone still alive in the rubble of New Orleans definitely qualifies as good news. You'll meet the people who did the rescue today.
And, later, the last president on this president and how he's handling the disaster.
We will take a break first. From New York and New Orleans, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency," with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
BROWN: On the night after President Bush vowed to right the wrongs of the much criticized federal rescue and response effort, there's a lot of hope in a lot of places that the federal government, the administration, will make good on the promise.
Former President Bill Clinton said the president's speech last night was a good start. Mr. Clinton spoke with Larry King earlier tonight about President Bush and about the decision to fold FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Well I think the president did the right thing in taking responsibility.
Clearly, the FEMA response was slow. And there are lots of reasons that I think that happened. I believe that there should be some reorganization there. But I think the important thing is, I had hoped this bill to set up a commission would pass, because I don't want it to obscure the present urgent need of everybody to keep working together.
We now have apparently a very able person in the Coast Guard admiral that's there overseeing the FEMA operations. If they want to leave it within Homeland Security, I still think it should be somehow made quasi-independent and the disaster preparedness and aversion capacity should be strengthened. A lot of that was taken away.
So, I think, you know, there are lots of options to do it. But the main thing I want to say is, that should not obscure what is now being done by everybody. We got everybody on the same page now, it looks like. We got everybody working together. And we got a huge job to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Former President Bill Clinton within Larry King tonight.
For all the talk of people coming back to New Orleans, for all the talk of rebuilding and the cost of rebuilding, you might not be aware that, every day, search teams are still -- still -- finding survivors.
One group, a search-and-rescue team from California, Task Force 3, goes out every day, pounding on doors, looking through windows, mostly seeing people who have died, and sometimes -- and today was one of those times -- finding someone who, by the grace of God, is still alive. We talked with his rescuers tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC MIJANGOS, CALIFORNIA TASK FORCE 3: As we were going out on patrol, we were able to find someone hollering out at us. It was quite an experience.
BROWN: It's described to me as an 81-year-old male.
MIJANGOS: That would be a 71-year-old male.
BROWN: Seventy-one-year-old male. What kind of condition was he in?
MIJANGOS: Well, when I walked through the door, initially he looked like he was in pretty good shape. You could tell that he was a little famished. He lost some weight. He was surviving off of just a couple of sips of water a day. So -- but overall he looked great. He had high spirits.
BROWN: And, J.D., when you saw him and he saw you, what was his reaction?
J.D. MADDEN, CALIFORNIA TASK FORCE 3: Yeah, we were in the boat, and when we initially heard him first, and when he yelled out to us, you know, our reaction at first was, wow, you know, there's somebody out there. We responded back to him, and he answered us. And the whole boat, we got that feeling of, you know, that's what we're out here for, that's what FEMA sent us out here for to do, to do our -- to do our rescue work that we've all been trained for.
He was thirsty. He was excited that we were there. He said we were the first boat that he had actually seen come by. He hadn't seen anybody, because he had been up in the attic, but the water had receded enough where he retreated to the house. And he saw us, and he was requesting some water, and Eric made entry into the house, and we both brought him out.
BROWN: Did he have food?
MIJANGOS: No, he did not. Initially, when I first got to the door, I made entry with a sledgehammer, got to the door, threw some furniture out of the way, and that's when I was able to take a good look at him. And then I realized there was no food all the way around in his kitchen. All he had was a glass of water. I'd say like a Big Gulp. And that's all he's been sipping on. And he didn't have anything else to eat. He mentioned that as well. But he was just thirsty.
BROWN: So for the last two weeks, he's had like a large convenience store glass of water and no food at all?
MIJANGOS: No, no food whatsoever. That's exactly what he said.
MADDEN: This man's definitely a survivor.
MIJANGOS: Yes, he is.
BROWN: Does it surprise you that this long after the storm, there are still people hidden away in homes who are alive?
MADDEN: I would say it is surprising that the people that are out there are -- are surviving on what they have in their homes. The conditions in certain houses at this point some might not seem tenable, but there are -- there are hundreds and thousands of homes out there that the conditions are tenable, which was exactly the case today.
BROWN: But yet he didn't have any food today.
MADDEN: Yeah, he didn't have food. But he survived on the water.
MIJANGOS: Yes. BROWN: Do you think it says something about the survivors themselves? You think they have something in common that allows them to survive this long with so little food, water and perhaps hope?
MIJANGOS: Definitely. I think you summed it up with the hope. I knew he had it. And he was also in high spirit. He was very happy to be there. I mean, not to be there, but to see us. And he was also pretty content with his condition at home. All he wanted was water. And that was pretty surprising. We asked him a couple of times, would you like to get in the boat with us? He was like, I'm OK with just water. And we'll get you some water, once we get you out of here.
BROWN: Did you guys take him to the hospital, or take him to a medical facility some sort?
MIJANGOS: Yes, that's what they're doing.
BROWN: And any reason to believe he won't make it?
MADDEN: No, no reason at all to believe that. He was in -- seemed to be in very, very good health, for the conditions he had been living in, and I would not suspect that at all. I think he'll survive the incident and hopefully meet up with his family soon.
BROWN: Good day's work.
MADDEN: Oh, thank you.
MIJANGOS: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Just look at those two guys. I mean, Anderson, you've been down there for a couple of weeks now. How many men and women there are like that who in some ways we've moved on to other part of the story, but every day they're going out and knocking on doors and looking for people, and every now and then they pull one out.
COOPER: Yeah, it's amazing. And it is. It's happening every day, every hour. You know, in every part of this city, still. And not only for humans, for animals as well. I'm actually joined by a man by the name of Lee Bergeron, who was watching the coverage on television, in his home. He lives in San Diego. And just decided he wanted to come and try to help animals. You actually tried to volunteer for the Humane Society, and they told you, no, don't come, we don't need you.
LEE BERGERON, DOGDETECTIVE.COM: Exactly.
COOPER: But you think they do need people.
BERGERON: Absolutely, they're understaffed.
COOPER: What have you find here? I mean, the shelter in Gonzalez, where all the animals go, I mean, they're turning animals away. So what are you doing to help? BERGERON: They can only house 1,500 pets, and there's thousands of them out there.
COOPER: This is one of the dogs you found?
BERGERON: Yes. Yes.
COOPER: So if people are watching at home and they want to help an organization like yours, you're basically kind of just renegade.
BERGERON: Right.
COOPER: You set up your own operation, you put the pet's names on PetFinder.com...
BERGERON: Correct.
COOPER: But what -- you are feeding animals -- you are leaving them in the homes and feeding them there.
BERGERON: Right. And we are feeding them on the street. If we see them on the street, at least they get another day and another meal.
COOPER: And your Web sites are what?
BERGERON: DogDetective.com and ChelseasPrayer.org.
COOPER: All right. Lee, appreciate what you're doing. Thanks very much.
A lot more ahead, Aaron. Still to come, a dangerously ill child's plight made more desperate by Katrina.
And a new job, a new town, a new house, and no sense of direction. Starting over, hurricane-style. From New Orleans and New York, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back to New Orleans. We're having actually our first lightning storm and rain since Hurricane Katrina. So many lives have been thrown into confusion by the storm. Whether they're waiting to hear from loved ones or trying to figure out where they're going to be living tomorrow or next week, uncertainty is the only certainty for many displaced by this storm.
And then there are those for whom waiting, not knowing, is a matter of life and death. Here's CNN's Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once again, we see the long, long reach of Katrina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very important that he gets his liver transplant now, because he is very sick.
GUPTA: Twenty-one-month-old Dennis Estroso has biliary atresia. That's a severe liver disorder that traps bile, causing damage and scarring. He's in need of a third liver transplant of his young life. The first clotted, his body rejected the second. He's been waiting six weeks for the third.
DR. STEVE BYNON, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA BIRMINGHAM HOSPITAL: I think it's extraordinary what's happened to them. We've put them on the waiting list here to be transplanted here, because his transplant center is out of commission for a little while.
GUPTA: Extraordinary, because while this young boy's home survived Katrina, his life support system did not.
Dennis was at the top of the liver transplant list at the hospital he visited over 18 times. Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. But then Hurricane Katrina shut down the three major transplant centers in the New Orleans area, including Tulane and Charity Hospital. On the Wednesday after the storm, Dennis was running dangerously low on his medications. The Estroso family knew they needed to get him to a transplant center. They drove for almost ten hours from their home in Biloxi to the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital.
ANGEL ESTROSO, DENISS' MOTHER: It's very overwhelming, because to go from one hospital to another and not know anything about another hospital is just -- and starting all over again. I have a journal that I kept of all his discharge, the dates, and the reasons he was in the hospital.
Without those records, they would know anything about him. I feel in my heart that if it wasn't for Hurricane Katrina, my son would have his transplant now.
GUPTA: There is no way to be certain whether or not baby Dennis would have received his much needed liver. But it is clear that Hurricane Katrina's chaos has severely reduced the number of donors.
CHRIS MCCRORY, LOUISIANA ORGAN PROCUREMENT AGENCY: Before the hurricane hit, we were averaging one organ donor about every two to three days. Since Hurricane Katrina hit, we've had only two organ donors in the two weeks. So our pace has slowed down dramatically to a crawl.
GUPTA: Those two donors did manage to save the lives of six people, through the gifts of a heart, liver and kidneys, but the number of people dying while waiting continues to grow. Chris McCrory is the director of development at the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.
MCCRORY: If they were patients at one of those three transplant centers in New Orleans, they felt completely lost. They didn't know where to go for their medication. They didn't know where to go for evaluations. They just had no idea.
GUPTA: Patients waiting for organ donations are registered only with their transplant centers, not through a national clearing house.
ESTROSO: There was so many questions in my mind. What do I do? Where do I go? How do we begin to start over? And is he going to stay strong long enough for us to do that?
GUPTA: The Estroso family found a way on to the top of another list., but hundreds of patients that might have been saved will now die, waiting. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, ahead on the program tonight, when everything is destroyed, everything, it is important to know what's going on. We're going to meet some people determined to get the news out against all odds.
And more than 2,000 children are still missing after Hurricane Katrina, 2,000 children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited children is working to reunite them with their families. So far, the cases of 760 missing children have been solved. This weekend, CNN is working in partnership with the center to help reunite family. We are going to run photos of missing and displaced children continuously for 40 hours tomorrow and on Sunday. Maybe you can help. This a Special Edition of NEWSNIGHT from New Orleans and New York, State of Emergency.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Coming up on the program, you'll meet a woman starting over and alone in a strange city. It's a nice story about someone's inner courage, perhaps courage she didn't know she had. But first, at about a quarter to the hour, time once again to check on other headlines of the day. Christi Paul again in Atlanta. Good evening, again Ms. Paul.
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Violence in Iraq actually today killed 17 people across the country. One of the victims targeted was an Imam at a Sadr City mosque. Elsewhere, a district mayor and his four bodyguards were killed when gunmen stormed office.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stood along U.S. President George Bush today and said that Russia also opposes efforts by Iran to develop nuclear missiles. He said that Iran should be more transparent about its nuclear program.
The man who shot and killed six deer hunters in Wisconsin has been convicted of first degree murder, and may spend life in prison. Chai Vang, a 36-year-old truck driver and immigrant from Vietnam said he acted in self-defense after one of the victims used a racial slur and another shot at him. Surviving witnesses disputed his account, and testified that he was on private property at the time of the shooting.
And the youngest son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush was arrested early this morning. John Ellis Bush was stopped at 2:30 a.m. in Austin's Sixth Street bar district. Charged with public intoxication and resisting arrest, Bush was released on $2500 bail. That's it for us here in Atlanta. Have a good weekend, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you, Christi, very much. I'm sure the family's real pleased to hear that.
Coming up a new job, a new home, often lost, but always on course. Starting over, away from the city of New Orleans. Break first, this is a Special Edition of NEWSNIGHT State of Emergency.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: As the president reminded us last night, Katrina's victims are far from home and friends and familiar things. That means tens of thousands are, literally, starting over, making sacrifices, but also making the best of thing. Or trying to, at least. This is a snapshot of an entire city on the move. CNN's Carol Lin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hundreds of miles away from the only city she's ever known, Terri Baquet is always getting lost.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bless your heart.
TERRI BAQUET, TEACHER: I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna be all right. I'm gonna make it.
LIN: It took her two hour to get to work at Sandtown Middle School south of Atlanta where she's starting a new teaching job. She interviewed with the principal wearing the T-shirt and flip-flops she wore escaping the hurricane.
BAQUET: She never thought twice about the way I looked.
LIN: Because that's all you had.
BAQUET: Yes. Well she walked me through the school.
BAQUET: At the same time, students had started collecting clothes and supplies to donate to hurricane victims. They ended up dressing their new teacher from head to toe.
ALEXANDRIA PAYNE, STUDENT: I bought her some clothes, so that she would have something to wear to work.
LIN: Everything Terri has now, an empty donated house, her clothes, shoes, were given to her by total stranger. It was a far better situation than when she first arrived, applying for any job she could find.
BAQUET: -- and was literally begging these managers for, which I thoughts with a wonderful salary, $9 an hour, you know, to work at Blockbuster.
LIN: Wow. And here you are a certified school teacher.
BAQUET: With a master's degree.
BAQUET: While she looked for work, her children lived apart from her with extended family, so they could enroll in a school. She drives an hour-and-a-half after work to see them. Zachary, 14, is trying to be a good sport about the separation. It hit 16-year-old Kelli much harder. We showed them the latest news footage out of their old New Orleans neighborhood.
BAQUET: Look at the Taco Bell sign.
ZACHARY BAQUET, TERRI BAQUET'S SON: Look at the Wal-Mart.
LIN: Terri wonders about her home, the arts and crafts bungalow she left behind, and how she's going to pay the mortgage on a ruined house. But there are things money can't buy. Terri's family and friends are scattered over three states.
BAQUET: When somebody calls me from the 504 area code, I just can't wait to pick up the phone. That's what I miss. I miss my community. I miss my friends.
LIN: They miss you, too.
BAQUET: I miss my family.
LIN: But terry doesn't want people to feel sorry for her.
BAQUET: We want people to understand that we are strong people, and we can do it. But right now we need so much help.
LIN: For Terri, there's so much support from her new job. They will do what they can to help.
SANDRA MCGARY-ERVIN, PRINCIPAL, SANDTOWN SCHOOL: And we need to get her a map, so she won't get lost. We need a big map.
LIN: Carol Lin, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: There are so many people in need tonight. Coming up, how do you put a newspaper out without an office or printing press or paper, for that matter? From New Orleans and New York, this is a Special Edition of NEWSNIGHT State of Emergency.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There are all sorts of heroes in a story like Katrina. There are the kinds you think about all the time, the two men we met earlier in the hour who rescued that elderly man just today. The clergyman who went into Memorial Hospital, trying to save lives, as the storm was just beginning to crush the city. There are cops and there are firefighter and there are Red Cross workers, heroes, all. And along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi there is also a newspaper publisher, a hero, too. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This is one of many small miracles on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
RANDY PONDER, PUBLISHER, "THE SEA COAST ECHO": Newspapers?
NISSEN: The delivery of the hometown newspaper. The "Sea Coast Echo." A miracle, because these are the offices of "The Echo" in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
PONDER: You see the water line on the wall there. That's how high the water was here.
NISSEN: Everything you need to put out a newspaper was ruined. All of reporter Bennie Shellbetter's (ph) files. All of the newspapers equipment, computers.
PONDER: I came in the day after the storm. Went to my servers, my computers, thinking I could save some data. No, can't do it. The connections had already corroded. Saltwater.
NISSEN: Saltwater ruined the paper's presses too.
PONDER: This press will never run again. Every metal part in this is already corroded. There's basically not much that can be saved.
NISSEN: Not the shipment of new news print delivered just before the storm. Not the old news print in bound volumes in "The Echo"'s archives.
PONDER: Those are the actual printed pages of this newspaper, all the way back to 1892.
NISSEN: The oldest volumes were on the bottom shelf.
PONDER: This particular issue's from 1894. This right here cannot be replaced. This is the history of Hancock County right there.
NISSEN: What kept "The Echo" from being history was sheer determination. Four days after the storm, news editor Jeff Belcher assembled a four page special edition, which was printed at a friendly Kentucky newspaper, driven into the area by volunteers.
GEOFF BELCHER, NEWS EDITOR, "THE SEA COAST ECHO": I think it was really important to get it out immediately. You know, television doesn't exist around here right now at all. Radio has been limited. People want to know ways going on.
NISSEN: Within a week, the newspaper's tiny staff had turned the storm-damaged dining room of publisher Randy Ponder into a news room, writing stories on newly purchased computers, laying out the front pages, reporting the best they could on cell phones. BELCHER: Land lines are down completely so all the phone numbers we had for everybody are gone. When we want to contact somebody, we have to pretty much go physically go find them.
NISSEN: The paper is then printed twice a week on the presses of the "Picayune Item," about an hour's drive north.
PONDER: The second issue, we had eight pages. The third issue, we had 12 pages. And we're going to get that paper back up to 36 pages.
NISSEN: That's going to be hard to do. The paper has lost its advertisers.
PONDER: This was Ricky's Bar and Grill. He was a regular advertiser of "The Sea Coast Echo." Basically, every business on the street was an advertiser of "The Sea Coast Echo." Total destruction on the street. Total destruction.
NISSEN: For now, the paper's being printed on credit, published at a loss. But published on faith that this little paper is important in a community where so many have lost so much.
PONDER: If someone does not get a newspaper delivered on time to their house, they'll call and they won't say what happened to that newspaper, why didn't I get that newspaper? They'll say I didn't get my newspaper, my newspaper. Yes, we're losing money on it, but we're doing what we're supposed to do.
I have newspapers if anyone would like one.
It's an obligation of the newspaper to continue publishing as long as we can.
NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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