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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Hurricane Rita Batters Keys, Heads to Gulf; Press Getting "Stuck on Stupid"; Galveston, Texas Preparing; Mayor Ray Nagin, New Orleans Prepared; Lakeshore Mississippi Destroyed; How Do We Pay for Rebuilding?

Aired September 20, 2005 - 23:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And good evening again everyone. I'm standing in front of a fire station here in the historic French Quarter. A neighborhood once filled noise and music. It is quiet tonight except for the occasional fire. A lot of arson calls. The fire trucks are going out police, are on petrol. It is really stuck between the devastation that has happened and the danger of what could happen. The streets that were emptied by Katrina now remain empty because of Hurricane Rita -- Aaron.
AARON BROWN, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Well that's pretty much the story. We've learned that Rita could turn into a storm as powerful as Katrina was, if not worse. The geography of where it's headed is different. New Orleans had unique geography, but think of the damage it did to Gulfport and Biloxi and you get a sense of what it could do to Galveston or Brownsville if it got that far down. It's on a path now through the Gulf of Mexico. The warm waters will make it more powerful as it goes and we are already beginning to see the preparations taking shape.

COOPER: Yeah, that's right, and anxious cities all along the coast now are taking steps to protect their residents, including Galveston, as Aaron mentioned. A century ago, Galveston was the target of the deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. This week it could be a target again. We're going to follow the storm closely in this next hour.

We're also going to find how the city is preparing. The city of Galveston and also the city, here in New Orleans. I'll talk to the mayor. But first here's what's happening right at this moment.

Rita, currently, is a Category 2 hurricane that's expected to swell to Category 4 by tomorrow, it's on the cusp already of 3. That's going to put it in the same class with potentially the same catastrophic power as Katrina. We're talking about winds at least 131-miles-an-hour. At this moment, Rita is tearing by Key West, Florida and is on track to make landfall near Galveston, Texas which has already declared a state of emergency as has, again, the state of Louisiana.

As for that earlier Category 4, Katrina's death toll continues to rise tonight. The number of confirmed fatalities stand at 970, 736 of them here in Louisiana. There is good news to report to you tonight. The Army Corps of Engineers says that at this moment, it has pumped all the flood water out of New Orleans and it is declaring victory, essentially. There may be puddles and ponds here and there, but the Big Easy once again belongs to its people not to Katrina and to Lake Pontchartrain. So that is certainly some good news to report on tonight.

Now, as we just told you, Hurricane Rita has been pounding Key West, Florida. There have been heavy rains, we've seen winds, even reports of tornadoes in south Florida, in the Keys. The storm surge has pushed about a foot-and-a-half of water and debris over parts of Highway 1 making that simply impassable right now. Key West mayor says that about 13,000 stayed there, riding out the storm. CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano and CNN's Rick Sanchez joining me now from Key West with a firsthand look at what those people there have been going through. Let's start out with Rob.

What's it like, Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the last squall that came through was amazing, the strongest one we've seen, really, in the past three hours. So, Chad was talking about how far east as Miami those feeder bands rolling in. So, it's going to be a long night for us here.

I was stationed all day long here in Key West. Rick, you were actually out cruising around. Where are some of the other...

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well we had to make drive in all the way from Key Largo. And from Key Largo here, of course you have to go through U.S. 1, there's parts of U.S. 1 were latterly it's just a small strip of land. You have the Atlantic Ocean on one side, you have the Gulf of Mexico on the other. There are places where we literally saw the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico commingle right down the smack center of the road, and you could actually see the waves going over the roadway. It wasn't so much for some of the people who where hunkered down, as you know, here, Rob, because we've been watching this all day. From 2:00 this afternoon when this thing was 50 miles south of us, we started seeing these gusts and these rains and they're still going.

MARIANO: What was it like going over the brides? There was some concern about the ramps going up to the overseas highway, it may be washed out by some of the storm surge.

SANCHEZ: The famed seven-mile bridge that you see here, and you hear people talking about all the time, is -- it's a treacherous bridge to go on and it scares people even when there's not a hurricane. Actually being able to go over that hurricane (SIC) in the middle of a storm, is even a little more, I'd say, ominous. I wouldn't know -- I don't know if you could say dangerous during those conditions, but it was certainly tough to go through because you're actually seeing the chop coming up (AUDIO BREAK) when you get to the very top of the bridge that's when they really seem to increase, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were gusts in access of 50 miles, 60 miles an hour up there. Don't know if they were hurricane force, but they certainly seemed like it at the time.

MARIANO: Word now is that they're going to let folks who evacuated come back in starting at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow and then, I guess, the power will be coming on. But what's been your experience with storms that go through the Keys? I mean, how quickly do they recover?

SANCHEZ: I think, for the most part, people in this are as hardy as anyplace else in the county. The whole history of this area is founded on hurricanes. Go around, read any of the signs behind us right now, if you go thorough these buildings, that Episcopal church behind us, in the middle, there's a sign in front of it, "We rebuilt this in 1909 after the hurricane." There was a 1912 hurricane, a 1935, the famous Labor Day hurricane, killed 600 people, so these folks are real sophisticated when it comes to hurricanes and that's why so many of them here decided that they're going to hunker down and stay.

MARCIANO: Well, and early word is that most of them, you know, have gone through with out any sort of fatalities. A couple of injuries and one girl that needed some medical attention, hopefully she'll get it quickly. But, not winding down very quickly, that's for sure. It looks like we're in it for several hours as Rita winds herself up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Back to you.

COOPER: Rob and Rick we'll check in with you a little bit later on. That's a look at were Hurricane Rita is and has been. The question is where is it going? For more on the storm and it's projected path we return to CNN's severe weather expert meteorologist, Chad Meyers.

Chat, where is this thing headed, when?

CHAD MEYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is into the Gulf of Mexico, it's going west at about 13-miles-per-hour. It's going to gain strength from where it is now. Right now 110-miles-per-hour, 111 gets you to a Category 3. There is the eye, there's Key West, there are the squalls that those guys are getting.

Now look at the size of the squalls that are east of here from about Miami into Forte Lauderdale all the way from about Key West right through Marathon, as well. Squalls here about 50-miles-per- hour.

Now I run you up through the middle Keys into the upper Keys. We go Miami all the way up to Fort Lauderdale. Some of the rain that you're going to see in the overnight hours will be flooding. There is a line of rain that extends all the way down to Cuba. This line is going to pushing right into Miami all night long. Literally an inch or two of rain per hour for maybe four hours. You add that up, that could be eight inches of rain. And then this storm was pretty much over, but for you anymore.

This rain band is going to affect Fort Lauderdale, Miami, south Dade, right in through Hialeah right into Miami itself all the way down to Kendall and those places that were flooded form Katrina. Here's what the forecast looks like though. Right now a Category 2. That four, that means Category 4. The storm does turn and on up toward Houston. Now that's the line. The cone is much larger than that. And why is there a cone at all? Well let me tell you. This a low pressure center, that's the hurricane. To the north of the low pressure enter in a high. The low can't go into the high. The high no you're done, you can't come into me. It's going to move to the west along the base of the high. The high moves on to the east. Now with Katrina, by this time the high had moved to here. And watch what happens when the storm gets on the other side of highs and it turns to the right. It makes that big right hand turn that we know Katrina did. If the high moves quicker than the storm, the storm is farther to the east. If the high moves slower than the storm and the high continues to push the storm to the west, Rita ends up in Brownsville or New Orleans. That's why the cone is so wide because it's still four-an-a-half days away. Back to you.

COOPER: It's so frustrating, I mean, as good as these projections are and we know that they are very good, you know, this for out to know it's coming to not know exactly where it's coming, It's a frustrating thing. Chad we'll continue to check in with you.

Let's go back to Aaron in New York.

BROWN: That actually was the cleanest description of why these things end up where they end up, I've heard in a long time. Chad, nicely done.

Galveston is bracing for the worst, it may very well get the worst with Rita baring down on it. The mayor of that city has declared a state of emergency order mandatory evacuations to begin early tomorrow morning. Hospitalized patients, nursing home patients, and the like. This was the scene at the local Home Depot as captured by photographer Chad Greene for "Galveston County Daily News." "Are you Ready" the sign says. A question not to be taken lightly by anyone in the wake of Katrina.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick tonight in Galveston.

Deb, they're getting ready.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: They are definitely getting ready, Aaron, and it's really on everybody's mind. The mayor ordered that state of emergency and answered a couple of questions and then she basically tore out just so she could get home and make sure that her own four children were out and safe. This way she'll be able to concentrate on the city business which is going to be starting tomorrow at 6:00 in the morning, when they begin evacuating the nursing home residents as well as people who live in assisted living.

Then at about 10:00 they are 80 buses stationed at a community center nearby, so far only 900 people have signed up to get a lift out of town. But they expect the numbers to surge, especially tomorrow, especially with news that, in fact, the hurricane seems headed this way. So, they're expecting that they're going to be able to handle all of those people plus many, many more who can't get out of town. And then at 6:00 tomorrow that's when everybody else has got to get out. And the mayor has said that if you decide to stay, you're going to be on your own, but they are going to have a police presence here. They're concerned about what happened in New Orleans and they -- police chief has put his own officers on notice that they are expected to be in place, they're expected to weather out the hurricane and then once the rain's clear, they will be here, they will be on the ground. So everybody here, boarding up, getting ready, packing provisions, and trying to get across that bridge before the winds come because once they hit about 40-miles-an-hour, it's going to be very, very tough to get a car across -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do you hear when you talk to people, people saying "we don't want a Katrina-like situation here?" Does the word come up a lot?

FEYERICK: Oh, everybody is thinking about it. As a matter of fact, even the city manager said, you know, we don't have all of the details but one thing they do have figured out is to make sure that they get their people out and that's what they are focused on now. They don't want anybody to be left behind. And yeah, those images are still so vivid in everybody's mind that they do not want a repeat here, and that's why the state of emergency could last up to an entire week and then be reevaluated as to whether people should be allowed back into Galveston.

BROWN: That's looks like you're going to be there for a while. Deb Feyerick down in Galveston, Texas, tonight.

Anderson, it seems to me that every level of government, given Katrina, local government, and given the failures of Katrina, local government, state government, federal government, all under a micro scope tonight as this second hurricane comes in to make sure that they do it better than they did three weeks ago.

COOPER: Absolutely and I mean it's very -- you know you're -- what we're able to ask now are very particular questions which we learned about what went wrong here. I mean, you know, we talked to people in Galveston earlier tonight about busses and bus drivers, things that they should have propositioned. And even something as simple as bus drivers, I mean that's where the mayor of New Orleans is claiming, look, you know, we had the busses but we couldn't get the bus drivers to drive out some of the 100,000 people here who didn't have cars. Let's hope they have learned the mistakes that were made here. Let's hope they watched it closely and those are the things we're going got continue to watch over the next several days as well.

You know, as we heard tonight, Hurricane Rita could be a Category 4 storm by the time it hits the U.S. again, I mean, it's already borderline Category 3 which about a one degree faster, one-mile-per- hour faster and it well be a Category 3. If it was at Cat 4, winds would be between 131 to 155-miles-per-hour. Now we all know, what a storm like that can do. After all, Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it hit. There have been others, 19 Category 4 storms, in fact, have hit the U.S. directly over the past 105 years. The worst of them in Galveston. Here's a look at some of the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): Galveston, Texas already knows what it's like to be in the crosshairs of a Category 4 hurricane. The worst natural disaster ever in the United States was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. It slammed into that town on September 8, a Category 4 storm. We only have still pictures to remember the devastation, but moving pictures aren't' needed to feel the storm's power, 130-miles- per-hour winds and waves 15 fee high leveled the town. Half of its homes were lost. More than 8,000 of Galveston's residents died.

Category 4's haven't much kinder in recent times. Charleston, South Carolina felt the force of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The storm hammered the historic port city and wreaked havoc inland with intense tornadoes and flooding. Meteorologists later estimated the hurricane had 3,000 tornadoes embedded within it. The storm claimed 26 lives and caused $7 billion in damage.

Last year's Hurricane Charlie was tightly would Category 4 that literally tore apart tiny Punta Gorda, Florida. Winds topped 145- miles-per-hour and gusts were recorded as high as 180.

(on camera): One house will be fine, the house next door will be completely destroyed.

(voice-over): Charlie's aftermath turned the town into something of a moonscape. Bricks and mortar were torn apart. The roofs of houses provided no shelter. Charlie claimed 10 lives in the U.S. and damages topped $14 billion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Still to come in this special edition of NEWSNIGHT from New York and New Orleans:

The Big Easy was just about to get up off its knees when word Rita sent it hunkering down again. What is next for New Orleans? We'll take a look at that and we'll talk to the mayor.

And the terrible story of a Lakeshore, Mississippi where it might just as well be August 30. Katrina did not forget this little town, but in it's wake, too many others have.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, CMDR. JOINT TASK FORCE KATRINA: Busses at the convention center will move our citizens for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and we'll move them on. Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was Lieutenant Colonel (SIC) Russel Honore telling reporters not to get stuck on stupid. What a lot of reporters were asking him and the mayor of this town is why should they believe what they are being told about busses are going to be at the convention center this time, because last time they were told the exact same thing, the people of New Orleans were told that and there weren't any busses and they sat there for days and days and days until anyone showed up to actually try to save their lives, until busses actually did show up.

So while the Lieutenant General was talking about not getting stuck on stupid and asking old questions, the fact is those questions are still being asked because they have not been answered. Why weren't there busses? Why weren't there bus drivers? Why weren't there better preparations from the local state and federal level? And I, for one, and all of us are going to continue to ask those questions whether or not Honore and the mayor likes it.

Earlier I spoke with Mayor Ray Nagin in New Orleans, the first thing we asked him about was the next storm and whether he and his city were, in fact, prepared for it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MAYOR RAY NAGIN (D), NEW ORLEANS: We're in a much better place this time, we don't have as many residents to deal with. Most of them have evacuated. We probably a couple of thousand people in the city and a couple of thousand business people, but we feel as though we can get them out really quickly.

COOPER: It's a tricky thing, though, to evacuate people when you don't know exactly how many and there are a lot of first responders here. Do you know how many first responders are on the ground? And is not knowing a problem?

NAGIN: No, the first responders are very well organized. They have a central command post, we have people ready to go just incase the storm turns our way. And it's going to be a Category 4 storm, so we're really watching it very closely.

COOPER: So, a wife of a firefighter, I was just talking to a firefighter from New York she wanted me to ask you what's going to happen to first responders. Do they get pulled out with this storm and then get sent back in or do they stay? Firefighters and police?

NAGIN: Well we're going to have some firefighters and some police officers to leave and we'll have an essential group that will stay behind. They will hunkered down probably in a hotel. It's my understanding if the storm turns toward us, the cruse ships where they're staying with their families, they will leave and then come back.

COOPER: Big problem last time was busses and bus drivers, not having them, not getting them to show up. Is it going to be different this time? Do you have busses organized? How's running it, where are they going to be?

NAGIN: It's already in place. We moved two busloads of people today. We had a press conference at about 3:00. Right after that press conference the press went over, we had another bus staged, we moved another 20 to 25 people and there's 10 more buses just sitting there waiting for people to come.

COOPER: Who's driving these busses?

NAGIN: Well, we're working though FEMA again and we have about -- it's my understanding they have about 500 busses that are staged and ready to go anytime we need them.

COOPER: Is there something that you learned, that you're doing differently this time, from -- in your own personal experience, that you learned from a mistake you made the last time?

NAGIN: Well, you know, the mistake that we made the last time was basically assuming that, you know, after three days to get a lot of resources to come in. And because the hurricane was so severe and a couple of other breakdowns, that didn't happen. This is a different event, we have plenty of advanced noticed, we have lots of resources, so we can move people totally out of the city versus moving them to temporary site and then getting them out.

COOPER: What do you want people here, in New Orleans to know? I mean, every -- are you telling everyone they -- they -- I mean you're telling them it's a mandatory evacuation, you want them to leave. Can you make them, I mean, is there anything harder you can do?

NAGIN: Well, you know, we've debated that for, you know, just about everyday that's we've been out here. Whether we force people at gunpoint and really don't want to do that. We want to make sure that intelligent people make intelligent decisions. So we getting as much information out to them. We're strongly encouraging them and most are abiding by it. Some are not and you know, we're doing everything we can to convince them otherwise.

COOPER: I want to ask you one question, we're out of time, but I do want to ask you one question about what happened before. Amtark, on Saturday, called your office, told you guys they had a train, 1,000 seats going to Macomb, Mississippi. Looking back on it, do you wish you'd taken them up on that offer?

NAGIN: You know, I never got that call. I don't know who they talked to, but I remember us, right before the storm was going to hit, to check with Amtrak if there were any trains that were leaving and we were told the next available train was September.

COOPER: Well I can tell you who they talked to, they talked to your head of emergency preparedness, Matthews, because we talked to Amtrak and specifically who they talked to, so he never told you about this train leaving?

NAGIN: No sir, he never did and we've never had a follow-up discussion about that. I'm glad you gave me a name. Now I have something to follow up on.

COOPER: Mayor, I know you got a million things to do. I'd love to just be able to talk to you one day, just looking back. I know this would maybe not be the time, you got a lot of things on your plate. But love you to come on the program and just -- you know, let's look back critically at not only what you're government did right and wrong, but what everyone else did. It would be great. A lot of people just want some answers and we'd love to have you back on sometime.

NAGIN: I think we should do that and you know, wherever the analysis goes that's where it should be. But I will tell you this, I think everyone involved at significant level should go through the same critical lens that I go through.

COOPER: Hey, I hear you, and I'll invite them all on my program. I want to talk to them all. We do appreciate you coming on in this busy time. Thanks very much, Mayor.

NAGIN: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Strange development to tell you about. The other day in the town of Kenner, Louisiana, we saw the African-American town manager, Sedrick Floyd, being accused of racism by the white chief of police, Nick Congemi -- you might remember that, that was on Friday.

Two men, well, they almost came to blows, there was a lot of yelling, at least, over what Congemi said was a shortage of housing for Kenner's Hispanic population. Well CNN has learned that Sedrick Floyd is now among Kenner officials being investigated on charges of pilfering relief supplies -- stealing relief supplies. We have just gotten this exclusive video of a raid, tonight, on Mr. Floyd's house conducted by the Kenner police. Among the items taken from the home, officers removed food, water, and a chain saw in the raid. We're going to have more on this story as it develops.

A lot of developments in Kenner -- Aaron.

BROWN: My goodness. Well, we've got pictures and now we look for facts. That's a festinating little moment. Thank you.

It remains impossible to forget Hurricane Katrina even as Rita spins her way to the Gulf of Mexico picking up speed, the numbers are numbing. An estimated $200 billion for relief and recovery, more than one million people displaced, but many, all too many of the dead, all too much of the destruction remains even now, three weeks later, uncounted. Uncounted where it really counts, one life and one house at a time.

Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You've probably never heard of the tiny town of Lakeshore, Mississippi. But you're unlikely to forget about it now, because no place was hit harder by Hurricane Katrina. The homes in this costal town have simply been blown away. Block after block of nothingness.

Piles of rubble covering the memories of family lives. Anthony Legea (PH) and his cousin Steven Bartet search through the muck of Steven's home for anything of value. Steven's father tell us something horrible about what happened on this one small street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The man that use to live right over here, in the trailer, he died. And the lady back over that way, she stayed, she died.

TUCHMAN: People from here are still missing. Prayers are being offered for them behind a steeple that recovered from a decimated church. Steven Bartet, Sr. had diabetes and cannot walk well.

STEVEN BARTET, SR., LAKESHORE MISSISSIPPI EVACUEE: That's my wheel chair I use to ride around. I can't walk good, I can't walk -- really I'm not supposed to be walking at all. I talked to a scooter store and I hadn't heard nothing from them. I'm going to try to call them again when I get home.

TUCHMAN: Steven Bartet, his wife and son have lost everything except the clothes on their backs. Their car was destroyed; their dog was killed in the house during the storm.

TUCHMAN (on camera): What gives you the strength?

BARTET: I mean, I'm sad...

TUCHMAN: I'm sorry for what you're going through.

BARTET: So many people going through the same thing.

TUCHMAN (voice-over): The Bartet family will not be coming back to Lakeshore. What happened here is too painful.

Gary Tuchman, Lakeshore, Mississippi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Just ahead, the bottom line on rebuilding. Who will pick up the tab, what will you have to give up, if anything, to pay for it? Perhaps your grandchildren will. And many orphans of the storm, how are the dolphins doing? We'll update that too. It's a State of Emergency. You're watching CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well it's one thing to promise to pay the bills for rebuilding the gulf after Katrina, it's quite another thing, as it turns out, to find the money to do it. The president is saying no tax increases and so far most or the Congress is saying no significant budget cuts. Don't you wish you could run your life that way? From the Hill tonight, CNN's Joe Johns.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Everybody wants to rebuild the Gulf states, but where's the money? QUESTION: How are we going to pay for Katrina?

SEN. PETE DOMENICI, (R) ARIZONA: I don't know; we just had a big debate about it.

JOHNS: We looked for answers in the crowded hallways of the U.S. Capitol and found the "don't touch" list was much longer than the list of solutions.

QUESTION: Are you talking about scaling back tax cuts as one of the options to pay for Katrina?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN, (R) TEXAS: No, I don't -- I mean, the tax relief we passed in 2003 has been responsible for the creation of millions of new jobs.

JOHNS: Democrats want to put the tax cuts on hold, but they're not willing to cut social programs.

SEN. HARRY REID, SENATE MINORITY LEADER: It's not the tax -- time for cutting Medicaid, it's not the time for cutting student aid.

JOHNS: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence and his House conservative allies have a plan.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: To delay the implementation of the prescription drug entitlement for just one year. That would literally put $40 billion back into the budget.

JOHNS: But what about cutting spending on the Iraq war, an idea with popular support?

PENCE: Now is not the time for us to reduce our commitment to our soldiers.

JOHNS: Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts. But when it comes to big government programs, it pans off.

SEN. HARRY REID (D), NV: We want to stop the Republican- controlled House and Senate from cutting Medicaid by another $10 billion.

JOHNS: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also wants the tax cuts rolled back. I asked if she'd give up tens of millions of dollars in highway funds for her district. She said yes.

JOHNS: For San Francisco?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CA: For San Francisco. And the people of San Francisco would be very proud of that.

JOHNS: But Pelosi's office called soon after just to clarify that she would only give up the money if others do, too. One more try:

How are you all going to pay for this?

SEN. BILL FRIST (R), TN: Right now, at least in the short term, we are responding, and we are responding aggressively. It does mean that our children, ultimately, are going to have to pay for it.

JOHNS: The clearest answer of the day, also the one option everyone says they want to avoid: Just borrow the money. Joe Johns, CNN, Capitol Hill.

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, we'll go back to the Florida Keys, which continues to take a pounding from either the back end of Rita, which is gathering strength in the Gulf, or a new band of storms coming their way. And, they've been missing for days, tonight they're home. The dolphins, whose saga we've been following, since the storm hit. Gary Tuchman will join us to update that as we continue from New York and New Orleans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WPLG CORRESPONDENT: We have seen all afternoon long, and when is the last time you saw a horseshoe crab floating through the parking lot of your hotel? This is just what floated by us a few seconds ago. The tide, the storm surge continuing to come up at this hour. This is definitely the strongest sustained winds that we have seen all day. In fact, after I get off with you, I'm going to go talk to our storm chasers down there and see what they're getting. But these have got to be 60-mile-an-hour winds now that you are seeing on the south side of Key West, South Roosevelt Blvd.

COOPER: That was from our affiliate, WPLG. Now, folks here in New Orleans are hoping and praying that Hurricane Rita doesn't come their way. Hard to imagine what kind of blow it's going to be to a region still far from getting back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina. For the latest on the Hurricane's projected track, we go now to CNN Severe Weather Expert Chad Myers in Atlanta. Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that it does hit Louisiana. I would just say this storm is still too far away to get a really accurate assessment of where it goes. Let's pay attention right now to where it is. Key West still getting hit hard. Winds there about 45 to 50 miles per hour. The threat tonight is flooding to Miami, all of south Dade.

There is a huge line of rain that is headed your way. An inch or two an hour for over four hours. This path, this feeder band, it goes all the way from Miami to almost Cuba. And it's going to be pouring rain into the city, a city that floods pretty easily, by the way, for hours and hours and hours. One heavy band already moved north of Fort Lauderdale, and even, for that matter, went right through Hialeah, right through North Miami Beach.

And then, much, much more tonight to come. That is part of the problem. You can even see it on the satellite picture. When it's big enough to see on a satellite, you know it's significant. Here's Miami, here's Cuba. Look at the line right at the end, see that right there? That is the flare-up. That is the feeder band, the outer band, one of the outer bands that is going to affect Miami. Possibly some life-threatening flooding there, later on this evening into the overnight hours.

Here is the path, though. This is the latest path from the Hurricane Center. Sustained winds 110 miles per hour right now, 111 is Category 3. So there you go, right on the edge. By tomorrow night, a Category 4. Here's Thursday. Everything has to get done on Thursday, and into Friday morning, right through here. By Friday night, it's too close, if that is truly the center of where it could be. And some of the computer models taking it a little bit further to the right now. But, if that's the center, the storm itself will be this big.

So you will already have the outer bands, those 50, 60-per-hour winds, already on shore by Friday night. And at that point, when you get winds to almost 25 or 30, you can't put four-by-eight sheets of plywood up anymore. You can't evacuate, you can't get over some bridges. You'll actually have some inundation of some of those low- lying roads with the potential storm surge, with that wind blowing so strong for so long. A hundred and twenty-five knots, Anderson, about 150 miles per hour, right there, Friday night.

COOPER: Amazing. All right, Chad, thanks. We'll keep updating throughout this program. Here's the amazing thing: You know, you can drive right down into Land's End in southern Florida and keep right on going out into the water for hours, along one of the most audacious ribbons of road in the world, a ribbon that will take you from one speck of land to another, all the way out to the last speck of all, Key West. In good weather, it is a glorious drive. In dangerous weather, it is downright frightening. CNN's Rick Sanchez is currently making the trip in pursuit of Hurricane Rita. Rick?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a look at this: one road, one lane each way. Forty-two bridges connecting tiny islands and snaking 126 miles from mainland Florida out into the Florida Straits. In other words, a fragile chain dangling in the middle of harm's way. It is the only way in and the only way out. And you don't want to be on the wrong side when a five-foot storm surge, like this one, suddenly hits. Keep in mind, this is the midpoint from Key West to the mainland. And there may be no way to turn back from where you came.

(on camera): What you're looking at behind me is the Atlantic Ocean. Now what's interesting is the Atlantic Ocean is only separated from the Gulf of Mexico by this narrow strip of land. This is US-1. What we're seeing here now is the Atlantic Ocean's waters are literally overtaking this roadway, and as it does, it dumps the water on the other side, in the Gulf of Mexico, where many boaters felt it would be safe to try and tie down their vessels. What we're finding is that many of them are having to go back. Moments ago, we saw a couple of the boaters trying to re-tie these lines, because it looked like that boat that you see right there behind me was starting to spring loose. (voice-over): If the water levels rise too high, here, one of this area's most historic landmarks could lose many of its most, well, most vocal residents.

(on camera): Here at Theater of the Sea, one of the most popular attractions in the Florida Keys, they're trying to make sure everything is hunkered down, including some of their smallest. This is tucker. He's a newborn sea lion from California.

(voice-over): Workers here say they won't leave the Keys. They'll ride out the storm with the animals and do whatever is necessary to keep their birds, sea lions and dolphins from losing their habitat.

JANICE WILSON, ASSISTANT CURATOR, THEATER OF THE SEA: What we do is we come in here and we have to check it out and make sure they're all OK. Give them some food, because you might not be able to be here later in the day. And then, when it's safe for us to come back, we'll come back again and do the same thing, and check them out and make sure that, you know, they're OK after the storm.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): There is probably no more ominous place to be during a storm that Florida's famous Seven-Mile bridge, completed in 1982 to replace the old bridge, which, ironically enough, had been torn up by previous hurricanes. As you go over it, you can see the whitecaps, as Rita's wind gusts create dangerous waves.

(on camera): Right now, we're about at the midpoint of the Seven-Mile bridge. Think about it: We're three-and-a-half miles into a waterway, an expanse of ocean, essentially, on a bridge which, when it was built, was the longest concrete bridge in the entire world. It's on the other side of that bridge, due west, that you come to Key West, an island where 50 percent of the population chose to stay, playing what officials call "a dangerous guessing game" that Rita would not blow up into a more powerful storm.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Some of those winds that we were experiencing during that drive took place when the storm was, at least as far as proximity is concerned, closest to Key West, sometime between noon and 2:00, when it was sitting and spinning about 50 miles south of where we are right now. We're still getting some of the rain bands coming through. We're still getting some of those strong wind gusts as well, but with much less frequency.

Many of the people here in Key West still without electricity, but we're being told that by 7:00 tomorrow, the mayor's going to be moving most of the residents back in. We'll be following it. I'm Rick Sanchez. Anderson, back over to you.

COOPER: Rick, thanks. Coming up on this special edition of Newsnight, how colored pencils and crayons are helping some kids come to grips with the tragedy of Katrina. And the continuing search for some animals that were at home in the water, but are definitely not at home in the open sea. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, three weeks after Katrina, really more than three weeks after Katrina, it is still hard for people here to grasp everything that has happened. It may never, frankly, be possible to understand really what happened here. The widespread devastation, the grief, the loss, too much for anyone to bear. It's hard enough for adults, but imagine going through this as a child. Some kids are trying to let out their feelings the best way they can, through their drawings, in Houston. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): Through the eyes of a child, this disaster looks different. The stories they tell with markers and paper. Simple but complex. A 12-year-old boy named Donald drew this. That's him alone on the roof of his house. He nearly drowned in that home and had to leave his mother behind. She couldn't swim. The drawings were made possible by four Texas moms, who sat out this ad-hoc art therapy project at Houston's Reliant Center. They have no formal training, but they do have supplies. So far, more than 650 kids have taken part.

LAEKIVA, KATRINA KIDS ART PROJECT: I'm drawing a picture of my family on the bridge, where when the water came, and they rescued us on the boat.

COOPER: Laekiva drew what she experienced. Thirteen-year-old Elise chose to write words.

ELISE, KATRINA KIDS ART PROJECT: It says, "It was nice but then the storm ended and some people started hating one another."

COOPER: Elise survived the Superdome. Nine-year-old Haveyon survived the floods.

HAVEYON, KATRINA KIDS ART PROJECT: When I was at my house, the water was coming up, and it kept on coming higher, so I had to get on my uncle's neck and he walked me onto higher ground.

COOPER: The children draw their fears, the failures they've seen. They also reveal emotions you might not expect. There is optimism here, and gratitude, even, sometimes, happiness. Expressions of what they may feel now, or perhaps what they hope to feel once again soon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And let's hope they feel, all of them, feel that once again, someday soon. My colleague Gary Tuchman has been following the story of the dolphins at the Gulfport, Mississippi aquarium. They were swept out to see in the wake of Katrina. Four of them were saved, four have remained missing. Gary's got Mobi Solangi, director of the Marine Life Oceanarium, out of Gulfport, there with him. Gary, what's going on? GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, very few good stories during a hurricane, but this is one of them. Eight dolphins swept away from the aquarium missing in the Gulf of Mexico are now all together in this U.S. Navy SeaBee facility here in Gulfport, Mississippi, in three different tanks. Four dolphins in the big one, two in each of the smaller ones. They were missing for days.

They were all found together in the Gulf of Mexico near the aquarium. They weren't even together in the aquarium, but they were together in the Gulf. Four were rescued through Saturday, but then the other four disappeared. For two days, no one knew what happened to the other four.

They were found today, also together, 15 miles away behind a casino in Biloxi. And they were rescued. Now, all eight are together here, and they will be transferred to other aquariums. It really is quite an inspirational story. And with us is Mobi Solangi. Mobi is the president of the Marine Life Oceanarium, which was destroyed during this hurricane. Mobi, the first thing I want to ask you: Did you think you would get all eight of these dolphins back?

MOBI SOLANGI, PRESIDENT, MARINE LIFE OCEANARIUM, GULFPORT, MS: Well, let me tell you, it is a miracle. It is incredible, I've never seen anything like this.

TUCHMAN: And this is unprecedented. No one's ever had to deal with something like this, dolphins disappearing during a hurricane. A lot of my friends walked up and said, "Were these dolphins tagged?" Now, they weren't tagged. They were in the big, wide Gulf of Mexico when you found them all.

SOLANGI: That's correct. I mean, they were lost at sea for almost 13, 14 days. And nobody had ever seen them, and then they show up at our doorstep.

TUCHMAN: Four of them disappeared for two days. I mean, I was with you out on the boat a couple of days. You guys were very worried if you'd ever see them again.

SOLANGI: I was and, you know, we flew in a helicopter a couple of days to look for them. And they had started to wonder a little bit. Yesterday by incredible luck, we just found them 15 miles away.

TUCHMAN: I think one of the most amazing things, when we saw them together, all eight swimming around, a few days ago. And there was one more with them, right, a straggler?

SOLANGI: Yes. There a lot of wild dolphins. You know, that's another miracle, that there were so many wild dolphins around them, but they never left. And that is what I think is...

TUCHMAN: Your dolphins never left.

SOLANGI: Ours never left with the wild, and they stayed, and they bonded with the trainers.

TUCHMAN: Now, where do these dolphins go now?

SOLANGI: Well, we're looking at sending them to different aquariums, possibly in Florida, or maybe elsewhere. But they'll be staying together.

TUCHMAN: And will you rebuild this oceanarium here in Gulfport that was destroyed?

SOLANGI: Absolutely. We're going to make it a bigger and better place, and you're invited.

TUCHMAN: Oh, and all our viewers, too, right?

SOLANGI: Yes, sir.

TUCHMAN: Ok, they can come. Mobi Solangi, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Dolphins are very, very smart animals. These eight dolphins certainly have exemplified it. Anderson?

COOPER: Gary, in your time in Gulfport, I mean how is the rest of the city doing? I haven't been there, I think it's been more than two weeks now.

TUCHMAN: We spent a lot of time here together, Anderson, and a lot of things haven't changed at all. There's still so much destruction along the beach here, and a lot of it just hasn't even been touched yet.

COOPER: All right, Gary, appreciate that from Gulfport tonight. Morning papers is next and an update on Hurricane Rita's path and its strength. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, which is mostly, actually, around the country, to be perfectly honest, or to try and be perfectly honest.

San Antonio Express-News: "Rita Powers Into the Gulf" seems like the right way to lead, "Category 4 feared, Florida Keys fared the worst, other areas brace for it." But I suspect the story a lot of people will read is up at the top: Hardberger, the mayor, to NFL, "San Antonio is no small market." Seems like the NFL is kind of slapping San Antonio around, saying they're not going to put a football team there, because it's too small. But it's actually bigger than New Orleans, Buffalo, Jacksonville and Green Bay. But it's not Los Angeles.

The Washington Post. "Rita Gaining Force in the Gulf" is their lead. A bad day in Iraq again. Embassy eight of them, nine Americans killed in Iraqi insurgent attacks. And, down in the corner, a story I think, honestly, because of all the other news, didn't get enough attention. Simon Wiesenthal died. A premier Nazi-hunter in the postwar era, a victim of the holocaust, and went on to capture, or help capture 1,000 Nazis in the course of his life. He was a great man, and he passed away at 96 years old. Cincinnati Enquirer leads "Hurricane Rita Taking Aim." Down here, "Delta's airfares now less simple." Remember when Delta made a big fuss about the fact they were simplifying their airfares, well they're not doing that anymore.

Want to get to the Chicago Sun-Times for more than just the weather. It's a good story, well they resisted putting on the front page, more or less. "Ex-Sun-Times Publisher Pleads Guilty." That's a bad thing. Meanwhile, the weather in Chicago is a good thing, sensational tomorrow. The weather elsewhere, however, is not so good. And we'll update Rita after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You're looking at a wide shot of downtown New Orleans, near the French Quarter. Some of the lights on for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck. A small sign of progress indeed. It's time once again to check in with CNN's severe weather expert, Chad Myers, in Atlanta for the latest on Hurricane Rita. Chad, how bad is it?

MYERS: It's still 110 miles per hour. It is gaining strength, Anderson. Typically, you and I are standing on some shore somewhere, and the Hurricane slams into it and then moves over land, and it kind of dies off. So our wind's died off. Well, the exact opposite thing happened today, all our reporters up and down the keys. The storm moved through, and then it got stronger.

So, we're still feeling winds in Key West to 50, 60 miles per hour, Tavernier now to about 40 miles per hour, and some very heavy rain into Miami. This is a band of rain that's going to move in to south Dade. It's going to stay there all night long. The flow of this band goes all the way down to Cuba. You have eight hours of rain at one to two inches per hour. This could be a serious flooding problem, for Miami-Dade all the way up to Fort Lauderdale. You see some of the heavier bands in there as well, that's going to be the issue for today.

The storm is actually gaining size now that it's past the Florida Keys, and now into some very warm water. Eighty-seven degree water there, in the Gulf of Mexico. So where does it go from here? Right now, Category 2. Sustained winds 110 miles per hour. Category 3 is 111, so you get the idea. Here's Wednesday, Thursday night, Friday night, and then overnight Friday night into Saturday morning, landfall there in Texas. That's the line.

We always say, "Don't follow the line, you have to consider what could happen if the high moves left or right." And what does that really mean? Well, there's a high pressure, a lot, that's sitting here, over the Great Plains. That is stopping this hurricane from turning up into New Orleans, at least for now. This high is going to slide to the east. The farther it slides, the quicker this hurricane is going to turn. With Katrina, the high had already moved away, and the storm turned so hard to the right.

This storm may make its way all the way to Texas before it makes its turn to the right. And if the high pressure stays in control long enough, it could be Brownsville or Mexico. If the high moves away, like some of the computer models are saying, it could be Lafayette, could be Beaumont, Port Arthur or Galveston. Back to you.

COOPER: Chad, so how big -- I can't see the model that you're showing -- how big is the eye and how fast is this storm moving? What kind of speed?

MYERS: That's an excellent question. The eye has come down in size, the eye now only about 25 miles around, 25 miles wide. Kind of think of, like, an ice-skater in the Olympics. You put one foot down, put the arms out, spin around, you go kind of slowly. You bring those arms in and you go real fast. Well we had a 50-mile-wide eye, it was going pretty slowly, 95 miles per hour. Now the eye is getting smaller, now that ice skater's going much faster, now that hurricane is going much faster, 110 miles per hour. Anderson?

COOPER: Wow, all right. Chad, thanks very much. We'll continue to check in with you. We're going to be tracking this storm, Aaron, obviously for the next several days. There are so many people here watching very closely, because, as we all know by now, a few jogs to the left -- to the right -- a few miles per hour difference, makes all the difference in the world for the people who are here. But right now, the message is, wherever you are in the cone, get out and get out fast, Aaron.

BROWN: Seems like a while since we pointed out that in all of this -- tracking Rita, keeping track of what happened with Katrina -- the Corps of Engineers, tonight, told us that they had essentially completed pumping New Orleans dry. There are still puddles here and there and spots here and there. But all the concern that it would take 90 days -- the early estimates were six months -- all went by the wayside. So good news there. Our coverage continues 24 hours a day. Catherine Callaway in Atlanta continues.

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