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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
The Aftermath of Rita on Texas and the Gulf Coast
Aired September 25, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks very much, Larry. Coming up this hour, the aftermath of Rita on Texas and the Gulf Coast. Devastation is spread as far as the eye can see. We're with army Lieutenant General Russel Honore as he tours the damage and it is a CNN exclusive.
Also, broken levees and dreams dashed. The latest from the Army Corps of Engineers as they once again attempt to dry out parts of New Orleans and we are going to talk the photographer who brought us the first images of the devastation from both Rita and Katrina.
These stories and a lot more next on CNN SUNDAY NIGHT.
Well, it's been a weekend of extreme weather. For starters tonight, not hurricane, not a storm surge but an enormous tornado whirling over Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This twister did touch down. Initial reports say a few homes were damaged or destroyed and two people sustained minor injuries.
Now to south Louisiana, the heart of Cajun country and the new pictures from Cameron Parish on the Texas state line. Only about 10,000 people live in the parish and we're told that 90 percent of the homes there are either damaged or destroyed. Parts of Cameron Parish are under 15 feet of water tonight. It is, of course, the aftermath of Hurricane Rita and officials are wondering just how much of this parish will be left when the waters recede.
The rebuilding between coastal Louisiana and Texas is going to make history. For the latest on what's going on where, we have plenty of CNN crews in the field tonight from Houston to New Orleans.
(on camera): Dan Simon in Port Arthur Texas. Chris Lawrence in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Bonnie Schneider at the CNN hurricane center. And in the City of New Orleans, Anderson Cooper. Anderson, let's begin with you.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Carol, thanks very much. I actually began this morning in Abbeville in southwestern Louisiana. It is a small town that has been badly hit, is being used as a staging ground right now for rescue operations. Flooding is the problem in that part of Louisiana. Extensive flooding, hundreds of people trapped in their homes by a second storm surge that came after Rita had passed, after the worst of the storm itself was over, a lot of these people who had even evacuated but had come back to survey the damage to their homes suddenly found themselves trapped.
Today, I went out with a rescuer trying to locate some people. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Keith Delahoussey (ph) starts searching just after dawn.
A 20-year veteran of Louisiana's Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Department, he has never seen anything like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's bad. I just hope we can make it all the way.
COOPER: Delahoussey is trying to find a family of four, stranded by the storm surge after Hurricane Rita.
Several hundred people have already been rescued in Vermillion Parish, but navigating the flood waters is tricky. This area is normally pastureland.
(on camera): Over here there's a fence. It's one of the hard things, even if you have an address, it's hard getting to it, there are all these obstacles. We're going to try to go over this fence now.
(voice-over): The boat gets stuck, but not for long. You have to keep a watchful eye, there's plenty of debris and hidden fences under the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So many different (inaudible) and you got to go over fences and it's really, really hard to get to them by boat.
COOPER: It takes Delahoussey an hour to find the home he's looking for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's the house.
COOPER: He's just in time. The water has nearly reached the front door. The family's two horses have little room left.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We stayed there through the whole storm, I knew I was elevated, you know, on a pad, and I see the swamp filled up and all of the sudden the surge just came right over the canal and I mean everybody was just driving down and we got blocked in and couldn't drive out with the vehicles because it got so deep.
COOPER: Kevin Hebert (ph)'s brother Chad tried to rescue them in his boat, but his propeller broke.
Their mom, Diane (ph), is ready to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're glad you all are taking us out.
COOPER: Diane Hebert is 63 and says she didn't evacuate because she didn't anticipate the floodwaters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, it rose really quick. Within a matter of 20 minutes we were with no water in the shop at all and water up to the house. Twenty or 30 minutes. I said, oh no. Then we got scared.
COOPER: Diane is worried the saltwater may harm this pastureland. It's already destroyed this family's cemetery, the flours on a tombstone still visible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is so much beauty in this land and the way we live out here and to know that it'll be years, if ever, that it comes back. That's hard.
COOPER: As soon as the waters recede, however, and the power is restored, Diane and her kids will move back to their land.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We all have homes to clean up and try to - then you start back up again life. What else can you do? Just pick up the pieces, start again.
COOPER: For now, they'll stay with relatives in Abbeville, and Keith Delahoussey will go back on the water. There's still many more people waiting to be evacuated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love rescuing people. I mean, (INAUDIBLE) help and that's what we're here for. Always (ph) protect and serve.
(EDN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on camera): The good news out of that parish, in that area the floodwaters have started to drop and their have been no fatalities reported and in the entire state of Louisiana and Texas, no direct fatalities due to the storm, Carol.
LIN: That is good news. Anderson, thank you so much.
Westward we now move to just across the state line. Port Arthur, Texas, on the shores of Lake Sabine, just 25 miles from where Rita made landfall, indistinguishable, tonight, form the tide of Gulf water that washed in this weekend.
CNN's Dan Simon is in Port Arthur tonight where the power is still out. Dan?
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good evening, Carol. It's a little tough to see this at night but behind me is a railroad underpass and it's covered with about four feet of water. The good news, though, this community did not get the widespread devastation that so many people feared, but that's little consolation to a local motel owner who we spoke with earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIMON: A lot of people are saying that Port Arthur dodged a bullet. You didn't dodge a bullet.
MICHAEL NGUYEN, OWNER, DRIFTWOOD INN: No, I don't think so. Not me.
SIMON (voice-over): Michael Nguyen owns the Driftwood Inn Motel here in Port Arthur, Texas, a motel he recently renovated.
NGUYEN: Everything is almost new.
SIMON: Now much of it has been destroyed.
The hurricane winds barreled through the back portion of the motel, ripping off the roof and peeling back walls.
NGUYEN: These things fly everywhere.
SIMON (on camera): All this debris.
NGUYEN: The debris, yes.
SIMON (voice-over): For Michael, the motel represents a lot more than a business. Thirty years ago he says he fled Vietnam having fought side by side with American soldiers.
You're from Vietnam.
NGUYEN: Yes sir.
SIMON: You came to this country with no money, only the close on your back.
NGUYEN: That's right. Bare hand (ph).
SIMON: He scrimped and saved until he could own his own motel. The 85-room Driftwood has already enabled him to give his wife and children a brighter future.
You put five kids through college with this motel.
NGUYEN: Yes sir. I used - through this motel I put five kids through university. One of them became a doctor last year.
SIMON: But despite his own loss, Michael feels worse for some of his guests, several of whom fled Louisiana after Katrina.
(on camera): Apparently whoever had this room fled New Orleans. These are brand new clothes. These folks probably lost everything they had in New Orleans from Katrina. They come here to Texas and they have to leave the motel because of Rita because they've really been victimized twice.
NGUYEN: Take the sign down from the street.
SIMON (voice-over): Michael thinks it will take at least six months to get up and running again. His plans of selling the motel and retiring put on hold indefinitely.
NGUYEN: Well, I survive in the war without nothing.
The building we can rebuild. So the money doesn't matter. That's life is very precious.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIMON (on camera): Well, back here live in Port Arthur and in addition to getting the power restored, we just spoke to the mayor and one of the big time concerns right now is we understand that two of the refineries here - this is a refinery town - two of the refineries are apparently leaking gas.
So tomorrow, authorities are going to be at those refineries doing what they can to stop those leaks, which of course could be dangerous. Carol?
LIN: Still a dangerous situation on the ground, Dan. Thank you.
Lake Charles' downtown sustained heavy damage. Retailers such as Home Depot and Target remain closed and in contrast to the situation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, police were on hand to stop the looters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF DON DIXON, Well, myself and 20 other officers responded to Katrina. We were in New Orleans so I saw firsthand what happened. We weren't going to allow that to happen here.
That's why we had our areas gridded off. Every officer knew exactly where we were supposed to go when they hit the streets. We probably had about a dozen looting arrests and I can assure you we will arrest every looter. There will be no mercy. If I've got to chain you to my bathroom, I'm going to chain you to my bathroom. And that's not a pretty thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Meantime, the floodwaters in Lake Charles are beginning to recede. Our Chris Lawrence is there with the very latest. Chris, it sounds like the police chief means business.
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, he does Carol. It's definitely a dangerous situation out here and they'd want to keep those people away from some of the businesses.
I've got to tell you, power crews working in the area have discovered some major electrical problems in the city of Lake Charles and we expect officials to come out tomorrow and make a statement to the evacuated residents, telling them not to come back until further notice.
Now, that said, the waters are receding, as you said. Just yesterday, I mean, that water was clear all the way up here over the ground, but even though some areas - in fact a lot of areas - are still impassable, some of them are improving.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (voice-over): This is what the road into Lake Charles looked like Saturday as we drove in. (on camera): But here we are, less than a day later, and it's hard to believe the difference. All that water is drained and the road is completely dry.
(voice-over): We passed entire neighborhoods where the water was splashing into the homes and now the same homes look like they've come through the worst of it. Unlike some of the families affected by the storm.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... Lake Charles.
LAWRENCE: Brandy Duffourc has been sleeping in the back of a U- Haul with her boyfriend and three kids.
Hurricane Katrina chased them out of New Orleans to Texas. FEMA let them come back to look at what's left of their home until Rita forced them to drive for safe cover again.
BRANDY DUFFOURC, EVACUEE: And the whole way here the wind is like blowing the truck all over the road. It was scary. It was scary.
LAWRENCE: They ran out of gas in the middle of the night.
DUFFOURC: Playing (INAUDIBLE) she likes somewhere (ph) they had gas and they we saw it said Days Inn on the exit so we just pulled in here. That was all we could do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was dark.
DUFFOURC: And we just tell family to come and get us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was dark. We couldn't see nothing.
LAWRENCE: They couldn't even afford to check into the hotel so they slept in the truck outside. They've lost everything in these two hurricanes, including any desire to go home to New Orleans.
DUFFOURC: I don't want to keep running from hurricanes every time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hurricanes came.
DUFFOURC: Every time one gets into the Gulf, we're scared. I don't like that.
It just feels like we never stopped running.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all messed up there.
LAWRENCE: Two storms are just too much?
DUFFOURC: Too much. Too much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The storm messed up everything over there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE (on camera): Yeah, just got off the phone with the family about 20 minutes ago and I am happy to report that their family did pick them up and they are safe in central Texas. Brandy tells me with everything that's happened over the past month, that's probably where they're going to stay, too. Carol?
LIN: Ah, Chris, and I'm sure that mother wants to do everything she can to protect her darling little girls. Thank you very much. Chris Lawrence.
Well, Rita hasn't been a hurricane for more than 24 hours, but it's still a rainmaker. Bonnie Schneider at the CNN hurricane center with an eye on what's left of Rita. Bonnie?
BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, those remnants are certainly causing some problems. We had reports of a tornado in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that actually touched down.
Check out this video. Very impressive. This was actually spotted by a volunteer firefighter who reported it and it did damage one home and caused some harm to another as well. This was near the Pickens County line, earlier this evening and you can see the devastation looks pretty bad.
Now when they're trying to assess whether or not this was an F1 or F2, what officials will do is tomorrow morning they'll go in and examine the pattern of the debris and the direction in which everything was strewn about and that will give them a better idea as to how severe the tornado was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Taking a look at radar now, you'll see it's still raining in Tuscaloosa and it's raining in many locations across the mid South because Rita's remnants continued to bring drenching rains.
In fact, in the path of Rita, we're likely to see between another one to three inches. Right now the center of the storm, what's left of it anyway, is over southern Missouri but ahead of it to the east we're seeing some strong thunderstorms, especially through Alabama. Birmingham should get hard hit in the overnight period. Tornado watches continue for much of the reason as well.
Now, as we look towards Rita and what we can expect and what we looked back on, we did have a lot of rain in Arkansas. Check this out. The rainfall totals were ranging between three or two to about five inches.
Now, what's important to note is this could have been a lot worse. We were expecting and anticipating Rita originally to sit and spin over the mid South, dumping even more severe amounts of rain than this but luckily, the upper level winds will push Rita on out to the north and to the east.
The cold front that's going to develop tomorrow will help to steer it and kind of stretch it out along the path and that will spread out the rain rather than concentrate it in one area and some of the rain actually towards the northeast will be beneficial because it's been dry there so at least we're getting a better ending than we originally thought for Rita.
Carol?
LIN: All right. Thanks Bonnie.
Straight ahead, Houston was spared the brunt of Hurricane Rita. Now residents want to head home by the mayor is saying not yet. Most of the regions' refineries and pipelines made it through the storm with only minor damage but some areas are still not in the clear. We're going to have a live update from Abbeville, Louisiana.
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jeff Koinange in New Orleans. Starting over for the very second time. Construction crews, engineers, businesses and residents of New Orleans put up a brave face having survived two storms in as many months.
All that coming up next on CNN SUNDAY NIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Those are the latest pictures out of New Orleans. Army Engineers say the newly flooded blocks of New Orleans, a week after the levees are again repaired but then the real work begins to bring the city back to life. It's a process that's going to be long and slow and very expensive.
CNN's Jeff Koinange in New Orleans tonight. Jeff, how long do you think it's going to be before these people can rebuild?
KOINANGE: Oh, Carol, that's going to take months if not years, but I tell you what, call it resilience, call it hardness, call it what you will, but one things for certain, the spirit of New Orleans is anything but dead.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE (voice-over): Leaving no man or animal behind. That seems to be the motto of this rescue team. They come from all over the nation. This team is all the way from Phoenix, Arizona and they say they've rescued hundreds of stranded and abandoned pets.
A.J. MEADOWS, ANIMAL RESCUE: We've found them in rooms with doors shut. We've found them in attics. They're right now going right back to where they know what they know and where the smells are and they're literally staying in those houses.
KOINANGE: Once found and fed, the animals are tagged and put in kennels for shipment to various shelters.
All this as the Army Corps of Engineers worked around the clock to fill a cracked levee in the Industrial Canal section of Orleans Parish to stop more water gushing into the Lower Ninth Ward.
And construction crews were out trying to restore power in a city that, for some neighborhoods at least, has been in a blackout state for nearly a month.
Some residents, though, aren't waiting for the grid to be up and running. Restaurant manager Gabe Hechler and his coworkers are back in town clearing out the trash and sprucing up their establishment. He's optimistic about reopening soon.
GABE HECHLER, RESTAURANT MANAGER: I would say tomorrow night at the latest. If we really stretched it we could do it tonight, but I'd rather - like he said, take my time and make sure everything's safe and sanitized and ready to go.
KOINANGE: Hechler wants to set an example for other residents of New Orleans to follow. Even those who may feel it's still not safe to come back.
HECHLER: I feel it's perfectly safe here. The bad element that was here is gone. They've taken care of that, the National Guard and the army. They've got the bad guys out and now it's time to get the good guys back in so we can have some semblance of normalcy again.
KOINANGE: A semblance of normalcy residents like Peggy Reynolds would welcome. She left after Katrina but returned more than a week ago and decided to brave Rita. She had been sleeping on her balcony on an air mattress and still considers herself one of the lucky ones.
PEGGY REYNOLDS, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: More than lucky. I feel blessed. I really do.
KOINANGE: Felling lucky and blessed in a city still struggling to get back on its feet.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOINANGE (on camera): And Carol, you've heard the old song that goes, "The Easy Part's Over Now and the Hard Part Begins." Well, New Orleans residents are going to have to be very patient in the coming months and years to ever get this city back to where it was before.
LIN: Let's hope it's soon. Jeff Koinange live in New Orleans, thank you.
U.S. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana today toured parts of his state that suffered the heaviest damage from Hurricane Rita. Senator Vitter joins me on the telephone right now.
Senator, do the pictures of the damage that we have been showing on television do the damage justice?
SEN. DAVID VITTER, (R) LA (on phone): Well, they really never can. But to see it in person, it's pretty overwhelming, all over again and the Hurricane Rita really affected all of our coastal areas. It flooded all of our coastal areas, not just in Southwest Louisiana, but far to the east as well, so this really has been quite a one-two punch.
LIN: Mm-hmm. Governor, Kathleen Blanco says it's going to take $31 billion just to shore up the levees and rebuild the roads. Do you think that's an accurate figure or do you think that cost could rise?
VITTER: Well, that's just part of the cost because of the infrastructure but there are many other costs as well. Senator Landrieu and I submitted a package in the Congress a few days ago with significantly higher costs and that counting everything so it clearly is going to be a major rebuilding effort. Really it's sort of reconstruction efforts this county has never seen considering the devastation, particularly in Greater New Orleans.
LIN: Mm-hmm. Governor Perry over in Texas, your neighbor, says that the federal government should pay the entire bill for cleanup and rebuilding. Do you agree?
VITTER: Yes, and already after Katrina the federal government had waived any max requirement for at least 60 days and we are asking them to go beyond that so I'm sure we would agree in that request from Louisiana and Texas together.
LIN: So how much do you think in total it's going to cost the U.S. taxpayers.
VITTER: I think it's still too early to tell but clearly this will be a major, major effort and certainly we need to be fiscally responsible about it. Certainly we need to have a lot of accountability and transparency but at the same time, Carol, at the end of the day we can't afford not to rebuild this vital region.
This is 20 percent of our nation's energy needs that come from - through Louisiana. This is a huge port system from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, the biggest port system in the world. If you take that together, serving 38 states, 75 percent of the crops of Midwestern farmers, so this really is not just some parochial Louisiana issue or Texas issue, it is a national priority.
LIN: Mm-hmm. A national priority but no one knows how much it is going to cost. I mean what you're discussing is something akin to the Marshall Plan instituted after World War II to rebuild Europe. Who is going to undertake the rebuilding and how is it going to be organized?
VITTER: Well, it's being organized right now but it's going to take several more weeks for that to be fully fleshed out, to provide strong leadership. I've suggested to the president that he name a strong federal point person for all this reconstruction. Someone with great management and business experience to be a stable, federal point person to partner with the local and state officials and get it done.
LIN: So you're saying it's not going to be FEMA.
VITTER: I hope it's not going to be FEMA, quite frankly. I think we need a strong, can-do leader who cuts through all that bureaucracy and red tape, who has extraordinary authority to be able to waive typical federal procedures and mandates. I think this really is an extraordinary challenge and we need that sort of extraordinary power.
LIN: Senator David Vitter, thank you very much.
VITTER: Thank you, Carol.
LIN: Well, speaking of taking charge, he's taken charge of New Orleans and now Lieutenant General Honore, his role is expanding to southwestern Louisiana and CNN was the only network with him today as he toured the damage.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm John Zarrella. The people of Houston began returning home today. We'll tell you how it went when CNN SUNDAY NIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: The nation's fourth largest city, Houston, is bracing, even anticipating the mass return home by people. The mayor says area schools will be closed tomorrow. Law enforcement is in place to prevent looting.
Right now John Zarrella has an update on people coming home to the nation's fourth largest city. John, it's interesting that government officials actually want what gas station attendants and grocery store clerks to be among the first to return home.
ZARRELLA: That's right. They've become essential workers here and you can see behind me, our viewers can see behind me those bright headlights just streaming into the city. That's Houstonians coming home. What a difference a few days make. You remember those massive traffic jams, 15, 20 hours people stayed in lines to get out of Houston, into Dallas and into Austin, Texas.
Well, it's a whole different story tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): Call it a Houston homecoming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (radio): Elizabeth (ph), how are things looking on the major freeways. Are folks starting to get back into town?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (radio): They really are and I can tell you right now, Brian in Conroe (ph) we've got slowdowns big time.
ZARRELLA: It's hard to know how many of the millions of people who had evacuated for Rita streamed across the highways on this hot September Sunday.
The phased return called for people in the north and west of Houston to come back first. There is no way to know how many others returned, too, but the numbers caused a logjam in Conroe north of the city.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now this exit has been closed off sir.
Go! Go! ZARRELLA: Police there blocked off exits to keep traffic moving. One motorist tried crossing the median to get around police. It didn't work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want you back on the highway where you just got out from illegally. Do you understand that? Get back on the road and don't you get off.
ZARRELLA: But for the most part, traffic hummed along smoothly. To keep it that way city officials said they needed gas stations to start opening, and they did.
(on camera): Police are telling us the massive delays during the evacuation were caused in part by the road construction on Interstate 45. That same road construction is causing backups for people returning to Houston.
(voice-over): Fuel trucks started showing up and drivers lined up, waiting for gas to start flowing. After spending 17 hours getting from Houston to Dallas, Jose Garcia and his wife Alex and two kids were coming home, almost there after five hours.
JOSE GARCIA, HOUSTON EVACUEES: I'd do it again because we never know what happens, you know?
ZARRELLA: And so, after a claustrophobic evacuation that never seemed to end, the return home has been more like your typical rush hour.
John Zarrella, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Now, for most people here, the big question coming back, Carol, is do they need to go back to work tomorrow? That's an issue, because a lot of businesses will still be closed, and what they'll have to do is they're coming in tonight, they're going to call in in the morning, find out if their businesses are open. But truly, we did see lots of tanker trucks at the gas stations, filling those tanks up, and that's the big thing: Getting the grocery stores open and getting the gas stations open, and that will get Houston moving again -- Carol.
LIN: You bet. Thanks very much, John Zarrella, reporting live.
Let's get a damage assessment now of the Gulf Coast, in the wake of Hurricane Rita. Flooding caused by high rains and a storm surge left hundreds trapped in some Louisiana parishes. U.S. military teams and local emergency workers spent today getting as many people to higher ground as possible.
Now, roads back to cities and towns on the Gulf Coast have been filled with people trying to get home today -- you saw that in John's report -- but Rita did enough damage to roads heading into Calcasieu Parish that it remains closed to people trying to return home there. Now, it could take a couple of months to get power restored to some places in Texas. The region's biggest utility says 270 high- voltage transmission lines were down, and just as many substations are out of service. 1.4 million in the region do not have electricity.
Unlike Katrina, gas prices are down a little after this storm, even though the Gulf Coast is home to a majority of American refining capacity. Oil companies only report spotty damage, the worst to refineries around Port Arthur, Texas.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm going to be giving you the very latest on natural gas, just what effect did Rita have on natural gas and will have effect on you as well? We'll tell you.
LIN: Thanks, Rick.
Also, Lake Charles is one of the worst hit areas. CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano returned to his roots to check out the damage. We are going to get his personal assessment.
And it's a view of New Orleans many of us never expected or wanted to see. In the days following Hurricane Katrina, viewers were able to look down on a city in ruins. We are going to talk to the man who photographed many of these stunning pictures, straight ahead on CNN SUNDAY NIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: President Bush is back at the White House tonight, but before leaving the Gulf Coast region, he joined Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco for a FEMA briefing in Baton Rouge. A photo there that you see of that meeting. A short time later and in contrast to their differences after Hurricane Katrina, Governor Blanco thanked the president for getting involved.
Now, extensive storm damage and high water are making rescue efforts in Louisiana's coastal parishes pretty difficult. Emergency crews rescued more people today who chose to ride out the storm at home. And authorities are telling people anxious to return, stay away.
Also, pretty worrying is the damage to the area's refineries and pipelines. CNN's Rick Sanchez is in the refinery town of Abbeville, Louisiana tonight. Rick, what's the damage like there?
SANCHEZ: We took a tour, as a matter of fact, Carol, because we wanted to see for ourselves what was going on. It's a city called Erath, actually, it's a little bit further, about seven miles from where we are right now. And it's important to make note of this, because there have been reports earlier in the day from a congressman who did a flyover as well -- he said that he had seen a natural gas pipeline rupture there.
Now, this is significant, because 60 million people in the United States use natural gas, not to mention that many of the power plants are now being used -- are now using natural gas itself. This particular facility that you were looking at just moments ago -- that's not it, by the way, that's the wrong video -- but this particular facility that we were looking at moments ago supplies 45 percent of the natural gas to the United States. So, we wanted to see for ourselves, whether we saw anything bubbling up, whether we saw any pipes that had broken or anything. We didn't.
So as far as we can tell, and we're not experts, the Henry Hub plant, or the Henry Hub, as many people call it around here, seemed like there wasn't any major rupture in it -- Carol.
LIN: Hey, Rick...
SANCHEZ: Yeah?
LIN: So in terms of -- so it seems like the information is kind of confusing then.
SANCHEZ: As a matter of fact, it is confusing, and that's why I asked the helicopter pilot -- he said, where do you want to go? I said the first place I want to go is the Henry Hub, because we were receiving reports from a congressman who flew over there, that there was a rupture, that there was a leak there. I want to see for myself if there is.
Chevron owns it. It's owned by Sabine. Sabine is owned by Chevron. Chevron put out a statement earlier today saying, no, there may be a leak there, but it's not our leak, and it's not our natural gas that's leaking. So please, quell that rumor, or that report, if you possibly can.
Now, I'm not an expert on natural gas. So all I can do is give it a visual inspection with my own eyes, and from what I could see, when I looked at the Henry Hub...
LIN: Got you.
SANCHEZ: ... a place that supplies 45 percent of it to the eastern part of the United States, it didn't look to me like there was any rupture or any significant leak there.
LIN: All right, thank you very much.
SANCHEZ: You know...
LIN: You bet. Rick Sanchez, reporting live in Abbeville.
SANCHEZ: Sure.
LIN: Well, the ground commander of military aid efforts got a look today at the new challenges facing U.S. troops on the Gulf Coast. And I say new, because as you know, relief work from Hurricane Katrina was just beginning in earnest when Rita hit. CNN's Randi Kaye traveled with Lieutenant General Russel Honore today, and is in Lake Charles tonight with this report you will only see on CNN. Randi, what did you see? What did he say to you? RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, he was on a mission today. The general really wanted to get to Cameron Parish, and we did exactly that. And I can tell you firsthand that Cameron Parish, in the southwest corner of Louisiana, right just to the east of the Sabine river, is an absolute disaster. In fact, late tonight, we were involved in an attempted rescue. We actually took the general's helicopter and attempted to find these two missing fishermen.
We flew over what was Cameron Parish, and more specifically an area called Creole -- that's the name of that city. We were looking for two guys in a boat that had been spotted earlier today and that have not been heard from. Unfortunately, we did not find any sign of these two men.
This is a big fishing community of about 10,000 people or so. What we did see is a community completely destroyed, water up to the rooftops in some areas of the parish; 100 percent of the homes were destroyed. In fact, we only saw in miles and miles of our flight in the Blackhawk helicopter, we only saw a few homes still standing. Some areas, 90 percent of the homes gone. Streets covered in water; houses just gone. Cattle stranded. They won't be able to be rescued. They are going to be left there to die. Few signs a neighborhood ever even existed.
In as far as Creole goes, all that's left there is the courthouse.
We spoke with the director of emergency management, Freddie Richard, and we asked him what he saw when he did a flyover earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FREDDIE RICHARD, CAMERON PARISH EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: We flew over today. I flew over and saw the slab where my home was two days ago. So I mean, a lot of these guys are looking at the same thing. We just saw slabs, empty slabs.
KAYE: And what is it like? What does it do to you, just -- how hard is that, to fly over your parish and see it looking like this, under water?
RICHARD: It was -- we needed a little bit of closure on the flyover, just to see, because we'd been wandering for 24 hours what we were going to find. It was tough to get off of the helicopter at the end of the flight and come back and report to everybody that you knew that was sitting here with a question mark on their face, just how bad the destruction was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KAYE: This is a really emotional time for the community of Cameron Parish. And as I said, Lieutenant General Russel Honore made it his mission to get there. He's really trying to do his best to try and help this parish get up and running again. He said, you know what, he's got to go to them because he's not going to sit around and wait for these people to come to him, and ask for help. He said, that is what the military does. Today, he got them fuel, he got them meals ready to eat, he got them a generator, he got them some lights, he got them some cots to sleep on, because now, remember, all of these people, even the emergency responders, have lost their homes. He's asked the Coast Guard to handle law enforcement. He has the military doing search and rescue operations.
And one gentleman told me on the ground tonight that the general got more done in 30 minutes on the ground than most people can get done in a week, and he will be back at it tomorrow morning, Carol, first thing, first daylight, and we will be there as well. We are going to go out on that water with a man who lost his business and his home, and we're going to search again for those two missing fishermen -- Carol.
LIN: All right, Randi. Thank you very much. Thanks for keeping us posted, and for those fresh pictures, astonishing pictures and so sad indeed.
Well, the U.S. Coast Guard search crews have been rescuing hundreds of people stranded in high waters, up and down the swamp Louisiana coast. For an update on rescue operations, I've got U.S. Coast Guard Captain Bruce Jones, on the phone with me. He is the commander of the Coast Guard's air station in New Orleans.
Captain, you were actually -- you and your rescuers were actually chasing Hurricane Rita. You were in the wake of Hurricane Rita, flying in 80-mile-per-hour winds, trying to get to people. How did the mission go?
CAPT. BRUCE JONES, U.S. COAST GUARD: Oh, the missions yesterday were very successful. Our air crews watched Rita's passage throughout Friday night and early Saturday morning, and we launched all five of our Coast Guard air station New Orleans helicopters, H-65s, at sunrise, at 06:45 yesterday. They flew west, looking for signs of distress, finding flooding, and commencing rescue operations in Dulac and Lafitte, Louisiana. Went as far as Morgan City, and then New Iberia, where they were forced down and had to wait for several hours on the ground while severe thunderstorms passed.
About noon, they got airborne again, headed for Abbeville, contacted by local emergency responders there, who gave them the positions of many people in distress. Our air crews then commenced search and rescue operations, flying in 50 and 60, gusting sometimes to 70-knot winds, taking people off the rooftops, from treetops. They were assisted also by four Coast Guard H-60 helicopters from Clearwater, Florida.
Later in the afternoon, DOD helicopters were able to get airborne as the weather decreased, and we had Navy H-60s from the Iwo Jima also doing rescues.
So the Coast Guard helicopter rescues yesterday were 64 people. In addition to that, many hundreds more rescued by local officials in skiffs and airboats. LIN: Yes, we heard some 1,000 people were on their rooftops waiting for rescue. And we're looking at this picture of what I assume is a mother and a little toddler. It's amazing, the situation that people chose to stay in their homes.
JONES: And that picture is probably, I believe -- that's the first -- the first Rita rescue was actually Friday evening, as the storm surge hit Dulac and Lafitte, Louisiana, our helicopters were airborne and picked up an eight-month pregnant woman and her 4-year- old child from a flooded trailer.
LIN: Well, maybe they had no place to go. I mean, I know it's a desperate situation when you've got a storm the size of Rita heading your way.
Are there any rescues in particular that stand out in your mind?
JONES: Well, our crews yesterday, who were hovering in 50- to 60-knot winds with gusts higher than that; for them, every rescue was memorable. The aircraft were buffeted by the severe headwinds. The rescue basket flying behind the helicopter in those winds as the crewmen, very expertly and skillfully threaded the needle, so to speak, putting the rescue basket between trees and between power lines, to get people out of their flooded homes. Very successful evolution. No mishaps, nobody hurt.
LIN: I talked with a rescue swimmer earlier today, who said that the helicopter had to fly up 200 feet before they could drop that basket safely, and haul these people up. Amazing work that all of you are doing out there. Thank you very much.
JONES: Well, you're very welcome.
LIN: All right. Well, the images of those rescues from the rooftops during Hurricane Katrina are etched in the minds of many of us. That no doubt goes for the man behind the lens. I'm going to talk to him when we come back. You are watching CNN SUNDAY NIGHT.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.T. ALPAUGH, HELICOPTER REPORTER: Unbelievable damage here. Now the water has gone out of these areas, you can just see what's left behind. And every time we look at this, and we've seen this for weeks upon weeks, every direction that we look, there is something different to look at. You just go, wow, I mean, look at this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: That is the voice of helicopter cameraman J.T. Alpaugh, describing the scene from over the New Orleans area. J.T. narrated much of the aerial footage from the Crescent City that we've witnessed in the days following Hurricane Katrina. Well, now, he joins us live from Baton Rouge.
J.T., it's good to see your face.
ALPAUGH: Good evening, Carol.
LIN: I know your voice so well. And one thing that really strikes me about your reporting is that you're just real, you know. You're not trying to be a fancy anchorperson. You're really just trying to bring the moment to us, just bit by bit, through your camera lens, from high above.
ALPAUGH: And basically, Katrina and now Rita was a story that needed to be told in such a way that everyday people could really grasp and understand and basically associate with. And I felt that that was my duty, to explain it that way in the best way I could, and that was just speaking from my heart and describing play by play what I was seeing from the air.
LIN: Right.
ALPAUGH: And just absolute devastation.
LIN: Yeah, because as you were seeing it, you were reporting it and responding to it.
Now, this is the first chance really that I've had to talk to you today because you've spent much of your time up in the air. So tell me what you saw today.
ALPAUGH: Well, today was a very long day. We started this morning by going to the New Orleans area, and looking through the levee breaks in the Industrial Canal and the breach in the levees and the overflow, and looking at that lower 9th Ward, that had been reflooded again, and how far that water spread back into the east, into the St. Bernard's Parish area.
So we took a look at that this morning. We also looked at the 17th Street Canal, and the water levels through that area.
After we were done with that, we flew along the Gulf Coast border, and flew all the way into Texas, and looked at the small towns all up and down the Louisiana coastline that were absolutely decimated by Rita. In very small towns like Cameron, all the way up to the Texas border, that were just absolutely wiped off the face of the planet, just absolute devastation in that area that is going to be every bit as worse as some of the areas that we've seen through the St. Bernard's Parish and through Katrina.
LIN: Anything surprise you?
ALPAUGH: Well, I can't tell you that -- every day surprises us. I mean, during the first two weeks of Katrina, w would fly out, and there would be hundreds upon hundreds of news stories, and people on rooftops. And everywhere you'd look, there would be a different story or a different tragedy. So I can tell you that everything was a surprise. Nothing that we saw became mundane or unusual -- or we got used to any of it. It was extremely changing -- a life-changing experience for us. LIN: But J.T., you're from Los Angeles, I mean, you know, you fly with the LAPD, you've seen a lot of disasters. You probably flew over the Northridge quake...
ALPAUGH: Yes, we did.
LIN: ... the wildfires, all kinds of things. I mean, how does this experience compare with that?
ALPAUGH: Well, I can tell you again, we covered all those things, like the Northridge quake and the fires and the earthquakes, and the riots, especially. And you can't -- none of those combined can compare to what we've seen here in the past month. It is absolute devastation at its worst.
I can tell you that those disasters helped prepare us for this, but you know, you just -- we've never seen anything like this, and hopefully we'll never have to see anything like this again in our lifetimes.
LIN: Because I'm sure there's just the emotion of the moment, when you're seeing people reach up for you from those rooftops and you're trying to bring us the news, and the pictures, and not be so caught up in the moment that you can't deliver the information.
ALPAUGH: Yes, absolutely.
LIN: All right.
ALPAUGH: But we heard you talking to the Coast Guard earlier today, and they did some incredible rescues. And what we did in the first few weeks during those rescues is we used our camera systems to locate some of these people that were hanging out of windows and rooftops, and radio in their coordinates to the Coast Guard so that they could come in and rescue them. But it's very helpless, because we didn't have the hoist rescue equipment that you see some of the rescue helicopters have out there. So we were doing our best to work with these rescue crews to help these people be rescued.
LIN: Yeah, but you know what, J.T., I bet a lot of those rescuers were grateful for the pictures, so thank you very much. J.T. Alpaugh, stay safe out there, OK?
ALPAUGH: Nice to meet you, Carol. Thank you so much.
LIN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano used to live and work in Lake Charles. He just visited his old neighborhood, and joins me now with a damage assessment. Rob, this story got personal for you.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: This one -- this one did, Carol. About 10 years ago, I lived and worked right here in Lake Charles. It's a place dear to my heart. Still have lifelong friends here. So I was anxious to come back and see what this storm had done to this community, a very tight community, good-hearted folks who live here.
So we made our way around town, through places where I lived, and places where my friends still live, and here is a look at what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO (on camera): Now, we're going to drive into Lake Charles. We're going to catch up with some people and -- and see how their lives have been changed.
All the exists are blocked. They don't want you getting off the -- off the highway, obviously. There's going to be streets flooded and blocked all over this place.
Wow. This is the -- this is like the Lake Charles signature building. It's made out of glass, or at least the walls are, and that's not -- that's not a good recipe when a hurricane is coming through. Look how all that glass was blown out. That kind of looked somewhat like this -- there was an ice storm the last year I was here. There you see these trees. Don't see a lot of ice storms, and haven't seen a hurricane in a while either.
I used to live in this neighborhood. My house was on the other side of those trees. It's like every tree on this street is knocked down. It's not Katrina, but it's going to be tough living here for a while, that's for sure.
I can't even see the house where I used to live. Every big tree is down for the rest of this block.
Block by block, signs of Rita were everywhere. It was time to track down an old friend. I couldn't connect with him on phone. The lines were down.
We're just going to drive down there and see how far we get, and hopefully not run into too much high water.
Along the way, we ran into Sonny Mannick (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurricane Audrey was a drop in the bucket compared to Rita.
MARCIANO: No kidding?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
MARCIANO: He's using his boat to go back and forth between his house, where he rode out the storm, and dry land. When Sonny (ph) left, we continued our search.
Is there a way for me to get to Ricky Poole's (ph) house?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, we're not allowed to let anyone off of the main highway, other than maybe the residents.
MARCIANO: We tried anyway, and just when we had given up...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing, buddy.
MARCIANO: Good to see you.
My friend Rick Poole is a builder, who was helping in New Orleans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My heart goes out to these people. I was thinking, my God, this is terrible. But when it hits home, it seems to be -- I mean, I'm not -- it just -- it changes things.
MARCIANO: Rick gave us a ride to his house in the back of his tractor.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome home. There's enough in there soap and water to get cleaned up. It doesn't look like it got too, too high in here.
This is my son's room. And this is our bedroom. Good to know the roof held. I don't know who put the roof on, but they must have done a good job.
This is just something that happens, and the good Lord is going to -- the good Lord gave us the house, and he'll give us the strength and the ability to fix it up again.
We are still blessed. Our lives still intact. So we're in good shape.
MARCIANO: For the Pooles and many other families, the long cleanup begins after the water finally recedes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARCIANO: And that's the key. As we're waiting for the waters to recede, everyone compares this storm to Hurricane Audrey, the big one back in 1957, that ravaged this area. And they say, especially down in Cameron Parish, that the waters came up farther here with Hurricane Rita.
Waiting for the waters to recede. In the meantime, people not allowed to come back, Carol. It's just too dangerous, and there is no infrastructure, so it's a wait and pick up the pieces and eventually rebuild here in southwest Louisiana.
LIN: Rob, thanks for adding a personal touch to our program. Rob Marciano.
Up next, a check of the headlines, and then "CNN PRESENTS: Is America Prepared for the Next Disaster?" We are going to examine six disaster scenarios, natural and man-made, to find out. I'll be right back.
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