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New Orleans Braces for Gustav; Jindal, Chertoff Update Emergency Info
Aired August 31, 2008 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. I'm Rick Sanchez. Let's get started for you. We're going to be covering the very latest on everything that has been going on with Gustav. As you know, Gustav is right now a Category 3 storm. These are just some of the images that we're going to be following for you over the next several hours.
There you see the situation on some of the highways. We're now into this contraflow plan that we've been telling you about, which essentially means everybody is being asked to evacuate, it's a mandatory evacuation. They have closed the highways going into these roads where the storm, Gustav, might affect New Orleans, of course, being the principle one.
And all the traffic is flowing out. All the traffic going in has essentially been stopped, except, of course, for emergency vehicles. As we follow the situation for you here, we want you to know that we are taking your input as well. We've got several shots -- go ahead, David, if you could. Give us a shot of the big plasma over there and we can see some of the shots and some of the comments that are coming in as we speak.
We're going to be with you in every possible way that we can. We're going to be connecting with you on the phone, we're going to be connecting with you on Twitter, twitter.com/ricksanchezcnn. There you see a comment coming in right now that says: "Look, great coverage of New Orleans, but please remember Houma, Thibodaux, and all the other communities directly in the storm's path."
Of course we will. We just want to underscore that we're watching the storm according to the path that's being given us now by the National Hurricane Center. Yes, New Orleans is still very much a part of that cone of uncertainty, as it is often called. So we're going to be taking you to New Orleans and parts beyond to the west as well.
We're also going to be on Facebook. We're also going to be on MySpace. We're going to be talking to you on the phone. What we want to do is turn these next couple of hours into an interactive news broadcast where you talk to us. You're there. You're on the scene. You're in New Orleans. We want to you reach out to us and ask us the questions. And then we will reach out to many of the rescue and public officials so that we can get some of those questions answered.
We're going to be going back to Jacqui Jeras in just a little bit and she's going to fill us in with what's going on with the storm itself. Let's do this, though, let's talk about the political effect of this storm if we could right now. And certainly it has been vast and varied, so much so that it now looks like the Republican Convention in St. Paul is going to be disrupted.
There's no doubt about it. Exactly how much or how severe, it's really up to officials as they meet. But let's go now, as we begin this newscast, to the words of John McCain himself talking today about this situation that they find themselves in through no fault of their own.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We must redirect our efforts from the really celebratory event of the nomination of the president and vice president of our party to acting as all Americans. We'll change our program and I'll be announcing that and the details of it in the next few hours.
But there's very little doubt that we have to go from a party event to a call to the nation for action, action to help our fellow citizens in this time of tragedy and disaster, action in the form of volunteering, donations, and reaching out our hands and our hearts and our wallets to the people who are under such great threat of this great natural disaster.
I pledge that as tomorrow night and, if necessary, throughout our convention, we will act as Americans, not as Republicans. Because America needs us now, no matter whether we are Republican or Democrat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Those are the words of John McCain, coming in about an hour-and-a-half ago. And we should tell you that as we continue to broadcast these two developing stories, the situation in St. Paul with the uncertainty over the convention, and the situation in the Gulf Coast with the uncertainty over Gustav, from time to time, stories will kind of marry into each other.
There you see the cone, the "loop" as we often call it, showing what the storm has been going. As you can see, it just went over parts of the province of Havana not long ago, around the Isle of Youth, and now it's into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Obviously as we know in the past, bad things can happen there, because the water is so warm, so deep, and so warm as it gets deep. Let me show you something real quick before we move on here. This is something that just came into us moments ago. This is coming in through twitter.com. This is T-Ger (ph), she says: "There is a report on Twitter that homeless being denied access to evacuation transportation if they can't show their identification."
I mention that only because we've gotten several reports of that. We've been seeing that kind of commentary cross. No, we cannot confirm it at this point. So the best we can do at this point is we've got calls going out to officials in the various sites there in New Orleans. And as we get information on that, we're going to be sharing it with you. So we'll try and nail that down for you. Obviously it may just be a minor glitch. It may be something more important.
Meanwhile, let's talk about the situation with the Republican Convention. Frank Donatelli is the deputy chairman of Republican National Committee. He's good enough to join us now.
Hey, Frank, go ahead and explain to viewers who may just now be tuning in what decision you guys have made and the circumstances that led you to making that decision.
FRANK DONATELLI, RNC DEPUTY CHAIRMAN: Right, Rick. Well, you heard Senator McCain talk about this. He has recommended to the convention, to the Republican National Committee that we postpone any advocacy and political speeches that were scheduled to be held tomorrow.
Instead, we will, as a party, go into session in the afternoon and we will conduct the business necessary to constitute the convention. There are certain things that we have to do, as a party, we have to credential our delegates. We have to adopt rules. We have to adopt our platform. That should take a couple of hours.
And at that point, we will suspend the convention. We will continue to monitor the situation on a day by day basis. This is obviously an unprecedented situation. But if there are two things everyone knows about John McCain, it's, number one, he strongly believes in service to our country. And number two, he's a man of action.
And so we're just transitioning a little bit from our political side to we want to do our part to help our fellow citizens in the Gulf.
SANCHEZ: So concretely speaking, what is going to happen tomorrow is that you're actually going to hit the gavel, begin the convention, and then essentially postpone it perhaps until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, depending on what happens with this thing?
DONATELLI: Again, I think is a -- yes, this is a day by day situation. We want to monitor the situation very, very carefully. And we want to be part of the solution. We want to participate to the extent we can in helping our fellow citizens in the Gulf that might be in the path of this terrible storm.
SANCHEZ: How would you do that? How do you take a convention that is set up essentially to nominate your candidate, and certainly as we've seen in the past, for, you know, a lot of well-deserved whooping and hollering and self-congratulations, and turn an event that's essentially set up for that into an event that would be a rally of sorts to help people who are suffering or even a fund-raiser, as some have been calling it? How can that happen?
DONATELLI: Right. Well, we have a lot of delegates who are good people and want to be helpful. We have a committee on arrangements that was responsible for helping to put this convention on. We have RNC fundraisers and they are all here in Minneapolis and in St. Paul. And we're going to be designing what we call a service component whereby a lot of delegates that have already contacted us asking how they can help, we're going to be designing a program whereby they can participate, they can call their friends and family, they can call their associates and urge them to support this effort also.
SANCHEZ: And the president is not going to be attending. That decision announced earlier today, perhaps made some time last night. When did you know that the president would not be going to St. Paul?
DONATELLI: I think he made an announcement this morning. And I think the announcement actually says he's unlikely to attend. But we follow the views of the White House on that, of course. But that was issued this morning.
SANCHEZ: Is there any reason to believe that he might change his mind and actually attend now? I'm only asking because of the way you just phrased that.
DONATELLI: No, no. That's the way the press release read. So I don't want to tie the president's hands. But we're not expecting him at this point.
SANCHEZ: Do you think it would be appropriate or inappropriate for the president to attend at this point, given what we know, Frank?
DONATELLI: You know what, Rick, that's a situation that the White House would have to respond to. The president will make the proper decision. I have no question about that.
SANCHEZ: Frank Donatelli, hey, I really thank you for taking time to take us through this. A lot of questions that people have as, you know, certainly there is a situation that is really evolving. And as more questions are asked, we need guys like you to be able to come on the air and take us through this. So we really appreciate it.
Meanwhile, the president himself has been visiting FEMA headquarters today in Washington. He has been trying to work out what he's going to do with this. Thanks so much again, Frank.
DONATELLI: Thank you very much.
SANCHEZ: And as he does, we understand now that we have some videotape of the president as he was there, visiting FEMA, and that we also have some comments that the president has made. I do think we have this now. Let's go ahead and turn that around for you and listen to what the president had to say at FEMA headquarters with David Paulison.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Message to the people of the Gulf Coast is, this storm is dangerous. There's a real possibility of flooding, storm surge and high winds. Therefore, it is very important for you to follow the instructions and direction of state and local officials. Do not put yourselves in harm's way or make rescue workers take unnecessary risks and know that the American people stand with you and that we'll face this emergency together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: You've heard the public officials talking about this, and there's no doubt this is a storm that seems like it's hell-bent on making a direct impact with some part of the United States, most likely either central to western Louisiana, and have an effect on parts of New Orleans itself, whether or not it's a direct hit.
We're talking about a hurricane, think about it, that has winds -- hurricane force winds, I should say, that extend out, at last check, 69 miles. So even if this storm -- and you're looking at the map there. Well, you're looking at it and you're saying to yourself, look, this storm doesn't look like it's headed right for New Orleans, it looks like it's going to be a little bit west of New Orleans. Yes, that may be true.
But remember, you have to measure from the eyewall out 69 miles. And New Orleans at last time when we checked, would still be within those 69 miles. So if you're in New Orleans, and if this track continues on its mode as it is right now, you would be within the range of hurricane force winds. We will not stop underscoring that because it's extremely important. And yes, obviously parts west are going to be hit even more directly.
Hey, Bobby Jindal is the governor of the state of Louisiana. We understand that he's going to be giving a news conference. Dan (ph), if you could, show us that podium as it's set up now. Looks like some folks are walking out, these -- maybe some of the officials with the governor's office. The lights are coming on now.
We're going to be monitoring -- let's do this, let's monitor that. And as soon as we know that the governor is in the room, Katie (ph), you let me know in my ear and I'll take you back to that.
In the meantime, I want to talk about something else. Because you know, one of the biggest things that we Americans have been suffering through in the last year or so is this sudden increase in the price of gas. And we're wondering what could possibly bring it down.
Well, if this hurricane stays on its current track, there's a good possibility that it's not going to be giving us any help at all. As a matter of fact, let me do over here. I want to draw something out for you. I've got all these tools that I've been working with today. This is a telestrator I asked them to put out here. Now look at this line right here.
Do you see this telestrator? All right. If we can come out to the telestrator, do we have it? There it is, all right. Do you see my lines? Good. Let me clear that screen. All these lines you see here, all the red area that you see right here, those are oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana and parts of Texas. Now look where the biggest concentration of them is. See that area right there? If you were to ask a question, where are the most oil rigs in the United States, it would be right in there. Right?
And where is the track of this storm going? I don't know, do we have that map where we can superimpose the cone and the track of the map? All right. When we have it, you'll be able to see it. Go ahead, Dan, if you would, go back to the other one that we were just showing with all the oil rigs. I want to show folks exactly what we're talking about.
If the storm continues in this direction, and let's suppose it goes just west of New Orleans into a place like Thibodaux, in Louisiana. Look at the area we're talking about. Worse, if it stalls, imagine the kind of damage that it can do there. Ali Velshi is in Grand Isle, he is following this for us as well.
Ali, yes, I just showed folks just really how perplexing this is from the standpoint of all those oil rigs there. I showed it to them because it's one thing to say it, it's another thing to see it. What kind of damage can it actually do from those officials that you've been talking to down there?
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I was just hearing you talk about Thibodaux, I'm in Grand Isle, which is, you know, right -- it's a barrier island right at the bottom, we're right on the Gulf of Mexico. You can see (INAUDIBLE) there are houses and trees, but less than one-quarter mile from exactly where I'm standing is the Gulf of Mexico.
The folks in this town, 1,500 year-round residents, roughly, have evacuated and most of them have gone to Thibodaux. So that's a bit of a concern. This whole area -- this is very low land. And it's not easy to get out of here. So there has been huge conformity with the evacuation from this town.
People remember Katrina. So many of the houses that are right around me right now were destroyed during Katrina. So people have left. But the damage can be severe. The one good thing, Rick, is that people seem to have heeded that lesson. They seem to understand that property can go, and they can't do much to save it if they are here. They can pray that it stays, but they can't do much when it's here.
I am staying, by the way, at a home right now, this is where I'm talking to you from, this is the balcony of a home of a man who is staying. He is not leaving. He built this house, he says, to withstand a hurricane.
It has got steel beams and footings that go right into the ground, and triple-screwed on roofs and things like that. But most everybody else is out of here. There was one elderly gentleman who refuses to leave. We went over with the mayor to his house. They really, really tried to convince him.
But as you know, Rick, a mandatory evacuation doesn't mean they can force people out of their homes. They just have to warn people that help may not be as readily available to them. But at least one other guy is staying in this town.
SANCHEZ: Ali, let me go back to what I was talking about a minute ago, because I know you have a lot of information on this, so I'm going to go ahead and use you as a resource here.
If this hurricane is off the coast where you are, or off the coast of Thibodaux, where the greatest concentration of oil rigs in the United States seem to be, and it sits there as a Category 3 or possibly even, heaven forbid, as a Category 4, what kind of interruption would we be looking at, at the gas distribution in the United States?
VELSHI: All right. Well, so, as I was mentioning, that beach behind me, when I was standing on that beach a couple of hours ago, I could see two dozen rigs and platforms. There are 4,000 of those in the Gulf of Mexico, 96 percent of them have been evacuated. There are a few that are still staffed because they are outside of the area of danger.
Now what happened in Katrina is many of these, more than 100 of these were very badly damaged and destroyed. The ocean churned up some of the pipelines. So what they have done is they've shut down all of the production that comes in from the Gulf of Mexico, that is a quarter, 25 percent of all the U.S.'s domestic oil production, shut down now.
Three of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, shut down. The pipeline that takes oil from here to Chicago, a million barrels a day, shut down. Some refineries are shut down. Now that, as you have alluded to, is not the problem. We can keep this shut down a few days, no biggie.
The problem is damage. If these things get damaged and oil can't get to refineries and that oil can't be made into gasoline, that is going to send prices up. That's going to create shortages. There was pipeline damage from last time from Katrina, you saw that, we saw shortages around the country. That's what we're worried about right now.
SANCHEZ: Ali Velshi, with as much expertise on this as anybody, certainly on our air. And we're going to be using that, Ali, we're going to be going back to you as this thing develops to try and get as much information as we can. I appreciate that.
Programming note, we've got General Russel Honore. Few people know more than General Russel Honore on what it's like to be prepared for something like this, what are the dos what are the and don'ts that all of us should be thinking about, both from a White House level to a governmental level to a infrastructure level to a personal level, to what you should be going, what your children should be going. And that's why we have him here. He's the best in the business.
At the same time, go ahead and give me a shot of one of the screens that we're using, our plasma. This is what we're going to be getting for you. We're expecting for Bobby Jindal at any moment now to come out and address the media with his latest briefing. He has been doing yeoman's work trying to keep people updated on what is going on in his state.
And now as far as MySpace and Facebook and Twitter and phone calls, we're going to be tapping into that for the next several hours. Go ahead, Dan, give me a shot of the plasma, there is you talking to us. We appreciate the comments and we're going to be doing our best to try and keep you informed. We'll be right back in just two. Stay with us, I'm Rick Sanchez.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: All right. There it is. It's what we affectionately call the "loop," once we get into -- deep into hurricane coverage. We'll have that up as much as we possibly can. It shows you where the storm is and where it seems to be headed. It gives a general idea of what's going on with this thing right now.
Obviously we're still several hours away from impact in the United States. But we're giving you all the information that you could possibly need to know and then some. And it's important to know. We're not just giving information, we're getting information as well. We are extremely connected to you in New Orleans.
Many of you have been e-mailing me, joining me on to twitter.com/ricksanchezcnn. You're on MySpace and on Facebook as well. We're taking calls and we're also connecting through cnn.com. So everything we can possibly do to reach you and so you can reach us. Speaking of reaching, let's go to Matt Sloane. He's on the phone with us right now. He's at a hospital in New Orleans, at Tulane Medical Center.
Matt, boy, I'd like to say that this is a place I'm not familiar with, but after Katrina, I can tell you I spent an awful lot of time there. What is going on there now? What is going on with preparations? And tell us how the evacuations there have been going.
MATT SLOANE, CNN MEDICAL PRODUCER: Well, Rick, just to give you some context, this is directly across the street from Charity Hospital, which I'm sure you're familiar with from Katrina. I have to say, things are looking pretty good here. During the last storm they had 1,600 people sheltering here, they are down to about 450 people here in the hospital this time. So they are taking the warnings very seriously and getting everybody people out.
As I'm talking to you now on the phone, I see a bunch of hospital personnel going into the hospital with their luggage. The hospital officials tell us the people that are here now are going to be staying here through the storm with the patients that are here. And you know, they are buttoning up pretty tight for this.
SANCHEZ: Matt, I'm just curious, what do they do with like critical care patients, for example? I mean, it has got to be very difficult to disconnect, reconnect and move people like that, right? SLOANE: The sickest patients are staying here in the hospital, Rick. They are worried that they are just too sick to move them. Anybody that's a little bit less bad off, they are getting them in ambulances, they are putting them in helicopters and they're getting them out of here.
I can tell you, I've seen a parade of ambulances going down the street in front of me for the last three hours since we have been here. They are taking them in the ambulances, IVs and everything, all the way to the airport, putting them in fixed-wing planes and getting them out of here.
SANCHEZ: Sense of calm or, well, how would you describe the mood, Matt?
SLOANE: I would say it's a sense of calm, although there aren't very many people left here in New Orleans, I've got to be honest with you. There was obviously no traffic getting in here. You know, there is only a couple of cars right here around the hospital. Mostly just police and EMS is what we've seen since we've been here. Again, more ambulances just pulled up.
SANCHEZ: It sounds then, as you described it, anyway, as if the mayor's screams last night have been working. Matt Sloane, thank you so much. Sounds like people have been heeding the warning. Although you never know exactly how many people have left.
And it's an interesting point, because, you know, the government can't make you leave your house. They can mandate an evacuation, but they can't literally tell you, you have to leave your house.
However, what they can do is they can set up curfew laws, and if they come back later on and you're outside your house, they can arrest you for violating that curfew. So that's essentially the way that works.
I know I've been getting that question an awful lot on to Twitter and MySpace today, so I wanted to answer that. That's the definition and that answer that I just gave you is the answer that was given by the lieutenant governor. Bobby Jindal, we're expecting to hear from him at any moment now. Let's go to General Russel Honore now, he's joining us here.
We're talking about people all trying to leave one place in droves. Look, you and I know, heck, I have to tell you this? You're a military guy. It's not easy to move thousands of people from one place to another. So we have this thing in effect called contraflow. Take us through that, General, if you would.
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. ARMY (RET.): OK. The basic concept is to go away from the eye of the storm. And to do that in time enough where you can get a flow normally starting with the people who are -- how the local government set it up, normally it's the ones that are closest to the eye, they will start first.
So people south would go, then those further north would go in order to keep the flow going. In this case, in Louisiana and Mississippi...
SANCHEZ: And we've got a map. General, just let me interrupt you for a minute. We put this graphic together so people can see exactly how the interstates are going to be working.
Go ahead and take us through it if you would, sir.
HONORE: Yes. If you go south of New Orleans, down in Plaquemines, down to the southern part of Plaquemines Parish, and you got to Houma, those people started to flow out the way the state did it and moving them north.
Then as you get up to New Orleans, into Lafayette, and those areas, as you go north, then the state-devised plans on Highway 49 that you see there and 55 to send people north.
Because the other part is they are moving people to the east through Mississippi and to the north through Mississippi, and to north Louisiana and to the west into Texas. So all of those roads going the direction of those arrows. And the state did a great job in organizing that.
Most of the roads we're looking at now on the camera in the New Orleans area are empty. And that's a result of the great work they did. What made contraflow work is government started getting people to think early, they make the decision early, and people get out of town early. That is key to making contraflow work.
If you don't do it in time, you just end up with a parking lot. In this case, the states crosstalked between Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. And when there was a problem, they diverted that traffic and moved it around.
So great work by a group of state policemen throughout the south there as well as the help they got from the county and parish sheriffs, Houma (ph).
SANCHEZ: What a different situation from the one you were faced with when you were really thrust into what was, well, a chaotic situation there in Katrina. This time it seems to be an orderly process as opposed to a general melee that you had to deal with.
We are so proud and happy to have you here with us. You're going to be sticking with us throughout the day, General. We're going to be going to you an awful lot, so prepare yourself, sir. And we're so glad you're here, General Russel Honore.
Let's do this. Let's take a quick break and let you know that when we come back, we're be talking to Jacqui Jeras. You know, Jacqui is going to be really holding down the fort for us here. She's going to be the one who is going to be bringing us all the advisories.
As the National Hurricane Center puts out new information on what they believe the storm could or could not be going, Jacqui immediately gets that information and responds to us. So we're expecting the latest information from Jacqui as soon as we come back from this two- minute break.
Stay with us. You're watching CNN. I'm Rick Sanchez.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. We're checking some of the information that you've been sharing with us, as well as some of the information that we're checking with some of the officials to share with you.
I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN. We are really staring down now at a hurricane that by all prognostications could be a tremendous storm that could possibly do an awful lot of damage to the coastal region of the United States, in particular, parts of either Louisiana, possibly Texas as well.
It has been a Category 4, presently it's a Category 3. It could be strengthening still as it heads into the Gulf of Mexico. And it has got an awful lot of pressure. That means it's twisting like a top really fast, which is what makes hurricanes most threatening and most scary.
There's the "loop." Somebody who has been diligently watching this thing, following that loop and really studying this like scientists do is our own in-house meteorologist, Jacqui Jeras. She joins us now to bring us an update on exactly what's going on.
What have we been learning in the last couple of hours about this storm, Jacqui?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we've been watching a couple of different things, Rick. One, the pressure has been dropping. And so when you start to see the pressure drop, a few hours later you start to see those wind speeds beginning to pick up. So right now we're at Category 3 status, with 115 miles per hour maximum sustained winds. And we could still see that go up a bit. But we think it's less likely that it will be a 4 at landfall, and more likely that will be a 3. But that's still a major, major hurricane with major problems with it.
Another thing that we've been receiving some data on from the hurricane hunters is that the eyewall, or the ring of the strongest thunderstorms surrounding the eye is not all that well-formed on the northeastern part of it. You can kind of see that a little bit on the satellite picture.
But that -- so when you see it not closed completely, that's a sign that maybe there was a little weakening. But that doesn't mean we're not going through some kind of a cycle and we could ultimately see some ramping. So those are the things that we're kind of watching right now.
Forecast track keeping it on the mark, moving up towards the north and west. And at this current speed we could see landfall even tomorrow morning, but we are anticipating some slowing before it reaches the shore. So the timing is still a little bit uncertain. You were talking, Rick, earlier about the evacuations with General Honore, and whether or not people have been heeding these warnings. And just a quick couple of cameras from our weather (INAUDIBLE) people showing you New Orleans.
This is the downtown area here. You can see the Superdome, and just taking a look on I-10. Look at that, there is just nothing out there. It's looking like a ghost town. We also have one other camera we want to show up here near the Mount Avenue underpass area. And there you can see, we saw like one emergency vehicle move on through there. And that's about it. So it's nice to see those empty streets -- Rick.
SANCHEZ: Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much for keeping us up to date on this thing. When is the next advisory, by the way? When do they put out the next one down there at Florida International University in Miami?
JERAS: Yes, 8:00 Eastern, 7:00 Central.
SANCHEZ: Eight o'clock Eastern, that's the next time they tell us what this thing may be doing differently than what it's doing now, if anything at all, right? Sometimes they just stay as they are.
JERAS: Right. It has been pretty consistent lately.
SANCHEZ: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thanks so much for bringing us up-to-date, just call me if you want to get back on the air and say anything. We'll put you on right away.
JERAS: I will.
SANCHEZ: Meanwhile, I want to read something to you now, it's a television camera can display -- only a single screen of damage when you have driven mile after mind-numbing mile and viewed the complete nothingness where cities and homes once stood, only then can you begin to understand what has happened here.
The man who wrote those words after Katrina leveled Biloxi. We'll bring you that man's own image when he joins us here next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: All right. Let me just do some programming for you here and let you know what's going on right now. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN. You probably know that by now. We're trying to get you up to date on everything going on in the country.
There are two real big stories, both affected by the same thing, of course. One of them is taking place in St. Paul, Minnesota, that's where the Republicans have decided to really, I guess, interrupt and play by ear the convention. They don't want to do anything that would make them look like they are not being sensitive to the needs of the people -- understandably, of course, sensitive to the needs of the people along the coastal area that might be walloped by this Hurricane Gustav.
So the last word from the Republicans, and there you see a live picture from St. Paul now, is they're going to go ahead and hammer down the gavel tomorrow. But then they're going to pretty much take a break and wait and see what happens and then maybe continue on Tuesday. The president has said that he's not going to be attending the convention in St. Paul. And we'll be getting more word on that later.
By the way, do me a favor, let's go to the big screen, Dave, if you could. There's -- now we're going to Facebook. That's on Facebook right there. Dan, if can go in -- Dave, you can go in a little tighter. I'll read it to you.
This is reaction, and we've been getting a bevy of it as well from the political side. "In regards to the RNCC, I would say that they are going the right thing in not having a complete convention and putting the focus on the hurricane and the people in the Gulf Coast. As a Dem I hope that the Obama campaign would do the same in the next couple of days."
Interesting that people are really putting their politics aside and just kind of dealing with this situation right now. The governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is going t be having a news conference any minute. And we're told now that it's about -- what did you tell me, Katie, about three or four minutes away now?
It's about three or four minutes away. So we're going to take that lickety-split as it happens. You'll see it right here, and your comments as well. In the meantime, there are other places, you know, you hear a lot about New Orleans, but how about the other places around there? Places in Alabama, in Mississippi, in the parts of Texas, like Beaumont, how about Biloxi, all the stories that we did there, as much as it suffered after Hurricane Katrina?
As a matter of act, let's do this, here's a look back at how Biloxi was just struck down by Katrina.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDA SANDERS, BILOXI EVACUEE: I put on my wedding band and I grabbed my rosary. When I called 911, I figured somebody just needed to know where we were, and I actually was thinking that they would just come and find our bodies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Finally you could see the water start going out. And I told her at that time, I think we're going to be OK. I think we're going to be OK.
HARDY JACKSON, KATRINA SURVIVOR: What you did for me later that morning, I just want to say (INAUDIBLE), thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, brother.
JACKSON: Thank you, thank you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They say we were stupid for staying here, but if we hadn't, a lot of people would be dead right now.
GROUP: Through the Father and Son he worshiped and glorified, and the life of the world to come, Amen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are only bringing bodies out of Harrison County here. So if she was over in Biloxi, they kept her body in Biloxi.
ANGELA ELLZEY, D'IBERVILLE RESIDENT: I mean, we're not as bad as New Orleans, but we need help just as bad as New Orleans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And for the last two weeks FEMA has promised me trailers or tents.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm getting angry. I was upset, but now I'm getting angry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): My house is gone.
I can't play no more. The guitar is full of water, but I've got my family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: That's that special on Biloxi, just to talk about some of the areas affected. There you see Bobby Jindal starting to speak. Let's go ahead and dip into that and see what the governor has to say.
GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: ... predicted to leave Louisiana before it stalls. I certainly don't wish this upon Texas or any other state, but that should reduce some of the rainwater flooding caused here. We are still likely to have flash flood watches, especially around our river areas.
Now, when it comes to the storm surge model, last night I shared with you what would happen if the storm hit exactly where the model predicts it would with that intensity. The good news is, if the predictions are 100 percent accurate, let me emphasize, if the predictions are 100 percent accurate, they are now saying that Lafourche, the levees will either barely hold or barely be overtopped.
The west bank of Jefferson and St. Charles area could avoid flooding, especially the west bank of Jefferson. If those levees hold, it will be right up to the cusp of the levees, especially depending on rainfall.
I want to emphasize, if the storm shifts even slightly east, not dramatically but slightly east, you could have very significant flooding in these areas. But thanks to the track of the storm currently, that's if the storm were to do exactly what they are predicting, which doesn't normally happen, usually there is some variation, Grand Isle would likely see seven to eight feet of water, the areas outside of (INAUDIBLE) to Golden Meadow would likely see eight to 10 feet of water. Coastal Terrebonne Parish would see four to five feet of water. The Lake (INAUDIBLE) area would see five to six feet of water. St. Bernard, Plaquemines Parish could potentially avoid flooding if the storm stayed on its track. New Orleans east could potentially avoid the storm surge but only if it storm stayed exactly on its projected track.
I don't want people to get a false sense of security. These projections have quite a bit of latitude in them. They know that there's some shifting, even when these storms make landfall. The science is not good enough to predict exactly where the storm surge or storm will fall.
They are expecting 70- to 80-mile-per-hour wind gusts and up in Baton Rouge. You can expect to see in the inland areas, especially in central Louisiana, as the storm makes its way past the coastal areas, you'll see hurricane force wind gusts, not sustained hurricane force winds, but wind gusts which could cause power outages and downed trees.
Same is true not only in the Baton Rouge area, but up through central Louisiana. You're not going to see sustained hurricane winds. But they are predicting the potential for hurricane force gusts. The north-northeast side of the storm, I want to remind people, has the highest threat of tornadoes.
What that means, if you're in Baton Rouge, or if you're in central Louisiana, if you're in one of these areas -- inland where the storm is projected to go over Louisiana. If you're in a mobile home, you should heed the advice of your local parish ELPs (ph) and evacuate to a shelter.
If you're in a stable building, stay indoors, stay off the roads if you don't need to be outside. But if you're in a mobile home, heed the advice of your local leaders, do seek shelter so you're not in a mobile home when the winds come through your area.
What we need to watch over the next few hours and what could provide more danger for Louisiana would be a slowing of the storm or some kind of unforeseen intensification. They are not predicting that at this time, but that would be what we need to worry about.
I want to emphasize, this is still a very dangerous storm. We're still talking about winds over 100 miles per hour. You're still talking a Category 3 storm on the cusp of a Category 4, 120-mile-per- hour winds, in those areas where it's directly impacted.
The eastern side of the storm is even more dangerous than the western side. So this is a very, very serious storm that will still cause significant damage. The good news is, the surge may not be as bad as initially feared if this were a stronger Category 4 storm. But the surge could still be significant.
If it deviates in its intensity or its path even slightly, we could still see significant surge flooding. It's too early, it's premature to think we're beyond that danger. In terms of the parish updates, again, all parishes have declared a state of emergency.
I went earlier today with Lieutenant Governor Landrieu and met Secretary Chertoff at the Lakefront Airport. I told you earlier, that's where we're doing the medical evacuation flights. I wanted to thank our National Guard there for their help in evacuating special needs patients out of south Louisiana.
We thank men and women from Texas, Florida, New Jersey, from several states who all came to assist Louisiana in evacuating our medical special needs patients. I also spoke this morning to Florida Governor Charlie Crist. I'll continue to try to update you regularly on the various folks that call and offer assistance.
This afternoon I signed an MOU between Louisiana and Missouri and Tennessee for their help, for use of their National Guards forces helping us here. Let me give you an update on evacuations and shelters and medical needs patients.
First of all, in terms of shelters, we've worked with several states to identify shelters for special needs individuals, that includes 53,000 spots in eight states. There's currently no wait for the air transfer of non-critical medical patients. And we have extra air capacity.
We're using C-130s, Chinooks and other aircraft to move these patients to safety. In region one, the greater New Orleans area, we're done evacuating both homebound and nursing home patients. New Orleans is still evacuating as we speak, 73 remaining critical care patients from hospitals. That's literally taking place as we speak now.
Region three in the Houma area, homebound and nursing home patients have been evacuated. Hospitals who want to evacuate have done so. So we've fully evacuated the medical needs patients in that region who have indicated they wanted to be evacuated.
In region five, in Lake Charles, within the hour, one additional nursing home just told us now that they needed assistance to be evacuated. We're giving them that assistance again as we speak.
What that means is out of 150 nursing homes in the impacted areas, 84 have evacuated. That means over 8,000 nursing homes that have evacuated, at least 27 of those 84 nursing homes did so with state assistance, meaning that their plans either didn't work as intended or they need additional help, 27 hospitals in addition to those 84 nursing homes have either had their full or partial evacuations. And that process continues even as we speak.
I do want to mention that when critically ill patients are evacuated, it certainly can be very risky. We're doing everything we can to save every single life. We've got unconfirmed reports at this time of three deaths of critical care patients that occurred during the evacuation of those patients, two in the Lake Charles area, one in New Orleans.
We know that those facilities, those nursing homes that evacuated those patients certainly weighed the risk of sheltering in place versus evacuating. We know that they did what they felt was best for those patients.
Again, every life is precious. We're working hard to save every single life. One of these patients had a do-not-resuscitate order. These are unconfirmed. We do not have cause of death. But we do have three reports of unconfirmed deaths during the transport of these critically ill patients.
Our focus, again, is to make sure that we are ensuring the safety of every individual in harm's way along the coast. Certainly our hearts and prayers go out to these families who have lost their loved ones.
In terms of the evacuation support, I want to thank seven states for helping us to shelter more than 29,000 of our residents in 107 shelters in those states. Texas has additionally agreed to accept several thousand evacuees, critical transportation of these evacuees will be dispatched within Texas.
For example, to Amarillo, has capacity for 500, San Antonio, 4,100, El Paso, 500, San Angelo, 300, Lubbock, 500, Dallas/Fort Worth, another 4,100. All of the Texas air hubs continue to remain open to receive our residents, our evacuees.
Oklahoma has agreed to accept 4,000 general evacuees. Additionally, 150 medical patients from southwest Louisiana hospitals are arriving at the Oklahoma Air National Guard base at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City.
I want to thank our federal partners, especially Secretary Chertoff. NDMS has established two federal medical stations in Baton Rouge, one in Ruston, one in Alexandria. Another two arrived last night in Alexandria, are being set up today.
Pharmacy services have also been established at each medical site. That's extremely helpful to us. Our goal is to make sure that we took advantage of capacity in neighboring states for critical need medical patients so that we've got extra surge capacity in state.
We anticipate, as we do search and rescue operations, that we have last minute evacuees. We wanted to have spare medical capacity close in to the evacuated coastal parishes, and that has allowed us to do that.
A shelter update, we now have over 120 -- over 120, approximately, I think 123 general population shelters open in Louisiana, the local ELPs, the Red Cross workers, are continuing to take in resident citizens at those shelters. More than 25,000 of our residents are in those Red Cross shelters.
And again, I want to emphasize, those residents in mobile homes, even away from coastal areas, if you're in the path of this storm, if your parish is receiving a hurricane wind warning or even a strong tropical storm wind warning, listen to your local parish leaders. If they encourage you to get to a shelter, leave those mobile homes and go to shelters.
We have four state-run critical transportation needs shelters. They are full at their 10,000 capacity. We have two FEMA, Red Cross, in addition, critical transportation needs shelters. They are also full at their 5,500-person capacity, which is why we're taking advantage of the capacity in our neighboring states.
We have five medical special needs shelters across the state. We still have several hundred slots available in those shelters. We have 649 patients currently sheltered in the state in those medical need shelters.
We're working again with several states: Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee, to provide additional shelter space for thousands of our residents as needed.
After we finish evacuations today, we'll be staging buses in Ascension Parish and Lafayette Parish so that we can -- after the folks have been evacuated, we can use those for search and rescue and other missions as soon as the storm passes.
We currently still have more than 400 busses still available in New Orleans. There was excess capacity through the day at the Union Passenger Terminal, and again, as soon as we're done with evacuations, as long as it's safe to be there, we will have those buses there. But then we will move those buses so they can be redeployed for search and rescue.
I want to talk to you a little bit about -- well, give you an update on contraflow as well. We are ceasing the I-55 contraflow. We've agreed with the state of Mississippi to cease that contraflow as soon as the police in Mississippi and Louisiana can do that. There's not -- there's not the sustained need for that contraflow.
We're going to maintain contraflow on I-59 to assist Mississippi's contraflow efforts. We'll continue until Mississippi and Louisiana state police agree that's no longer necessary. I have talked to Governor Barbour today, we both agreed, we're in agreement, as soon as our state police are in agreement, they can cease contraflow on I-59 as well.
To give you an update on the contraflow number, Colonel Edmonson (ph) checked the with the local state police commanders and local ELPs, this is a very, very rough estimate and there's no precise way to calculate these numbers. So I think that Ed asked this question earlier.
Of the 2 million people that we expected to have to evacuate out of the coastal areas, local estimates are that as many as 95 percent have evacuated. That'll put the total a little over 1.9 million people. There's a question asked earlier today that would indeed be the largest evacuation in Louisiana's history.
The question was asked and Edmonson (ph) was talking about whether it was the largest evacuation in New Orleans' history. The reality is that would be the largest evacuation. It is the largest evacuation. Unprecedented to evacuate both parts of the state at one time.
Again, those are estimates. We've stopped contraflow elsewhere, as we announced earlier this morning. Earlier today in the early hours of contraflow, just to give you an example, over 200,000 people evacuated through the early hours of contraflow.
According to the chief of police in New Orleans -- and this is an unconfirmed report, according to chief of police, there are less than 10,000 people estimated to be left in the city of New Orleans.
Now, the lieutenant governor and I actually did fly over the city of New Orleans after we went to the Lakefront Airport, there I tell you, was very, very little activity of cars or people on the ground. There was a lot of activity of law enforcement, National Guard.
It's my understanding that local police in New Orleans are going through the city, broadcasting in English and Vietnamese and Spanish, messages for people to evacuate the city. Again, it's unconfirmed, but our National Guard troops are on the ground had told us that was the plans.
In New Orleans, their intention to stop the RTA buses at 3:00 and then shift to go into neighborhoods to broadcast those messages and see if people needed to be picked up or needed assistance.
I want to shift gears before I introduce Secretary Chertoff and talk to you just for a minute on what happens after the storm makes landfall. I think that I have talked to you extensively about evacuations, certainly my message to our people remains unchanged.
If you're hearing this, seeing this, if you've not evacuated, please do so. There is still a few hours left. Please do so while you can get out safely. This is a serious storm. If it veers slightly to the east, we could have massive tidal surge and flooding issues.
And certainly, these are very strong hurricane force winds. I would encourage everybody, everybody hearing and seeing this, if you're in coastal Louisiana, please do evacuate. I want to thank our residents. It's apparent that the vast majority did so and did so even before mandatory evacuations, even before contraflow.
A couple of words about what happens as soon as the storm hits, what do we do in terms of search and rescue, in terms of utilities, and other critical needs? Search and rescue: Wildlife and Fisheries is working with the Coast Guard, with FEMA, the National Guard, they've got three forward-located based locations on the west bank and Abbeville, at Nicolls State University.
They have assembled 300 people on 200 boats from within the state of Louisiana, plus an additional 500 people with equipment from the federal government and from other states.
For example, that includes 100 people with 16 boats from California. New York and Michigan are also sending additional support units. They're staging several of these teams at Camp Beauregard. They've got space at Lamar-Dixon for up to 700 people. Sheriff's Association is helping with that as well.
They've assembled air support from the Coast Guard, from the National Guard. I talked to Governor Barbour, Mississippi has three 100-member search-and-rescue team that they may free up if they're not as heavily impacted by this storm, to supplement Louisiana's efforts.
We will begin search-and-rescue operations as soon as we safely can. That would be when winds are below 40 miles per hour, before tropical storm levels. We expect, based on current projections, that will be late Monday.
Even before that, we've got four deployed National Guard, state police units. We've got boots on the ground, eyes on the ground. So even before that, even before we can get into the air, even before we can get boats on the water, we do have people on the ground to make sure that we're going everything that we can to save every single life.
In terms of other preparations ahead of the storm, state police are going to go to a skeleton crew very, very late tonight in Slidell, in Houma, New Orleans. They're going to withdraw their troopers to Baton Rouge. They'll go out with the utility companies with chainsaws to allow them to get back into these impacted areas.
When it comes to restoring utilities, already we're focusing not only on system recovery, but on what is called load-shedding to minimize the impact on the national grid. When you take this much demand and supply off the grid, it has got an impact beyond the state of Louisiana.
We have 11,000 additional out-of-state individuals that are now in Louisiana staged to -- ready to help us go back and restore power, that includes those that will be there -- the linesmen as well as the vegetation experts as well. They're literally getting an update every four hours on the status of utilities.
They'll start with the essentials, hospitals, fire, water, sewer. They'll start surveillance like search-and-rescue. They're going to have to wait until after landfall until it's safe for them to go out. You would expect them to go out once winds are below 40 miles per hour. That would be approximately six to seven hours of landfall.
A couple of points of interest, just in terms of how this storm may impact areas outside of Louisiana, 96 percent of the federal oil supply, 82 percent of the federal natural gas production in the Gulf is currently shut in. That will certainly, obviously, have an impact on fuel supply.
You know that we get 70 percent of our power from natural gas and obviously the storm, the Gulf, will decrease the availability of natural gas. PSC has got reserves and contracts, they've got other mechanisms to try to address this situation. I'll allow them to talk to you about that in greater detail. Finally in terms of two last points, DOTD (ph) has got nine regional offices after this storms. They will work with the National Guard. Their focus -- DOTD's focus will be on clearing interstates, on assessing bridges, doing a structural analysis on roads and bridges so that utility companies, search-and-rescue teams can get out there.
They've already prepositioned northern equipment from northern Louisiana into the coastal areas. The corps has contractors that are ready to be activated through FEMA. Finally, the National Guard. The National Guard is prepositioned, their aircraft in Meridian.
They will preposition their aircraft tomorrow morning in Meridian, Mississippi. They will continue to use those aircraft between now and those. Those aircraft will available to support the Corps if that's needed to repair any breaches in levees or overtops.
They've also got engineering assessment teams with front-loaders that are forward deployed. So they can start road clearings right away. Those are small cells, however, they've got 2,000 troops in addition, in southwest Louisiana, but the majority of their equipment, they've got massive equipment, stationed at Camp Beauregard.
This question was asked earlier, where are they staging their equipment? It is on high ground. There will be a massive deployment, ready to go as soon as it's safe for them do so. They've got forward- positioned engineering units. I told you those locations this morning, with the individual front-loaders.
My last word, I will encourage again, our residents go to mystateusa.com to sign up for emergency updates on announcements, n evacuations. Residents can also go to www.emergency.louisiana.gov for more updated information on the storm, on Louisiana.
We will be deploying teams to these out-of-state shelters, something that wasn't done before. Let me just -- before I introduce the secretary, one last time, there's still hours left. If people are hearing this message, and they think that they're going to shelter in place, or stay in place, I'd still strongly encourage them to seek safety.
There's no backup to traffic, there are extra buses in New Orleans, extra aircraft for medical needs patients, not only in New Orleans, but throughout coastal Louisiana. I strongly encourage our people, if you're hearing this, if you're seeing this message, it's not too late to evacuate.
I strongly encourage you do so and certainly the state is positioned -- I have talked a lot about search-and-rescue utilities, but I don't want anybody to have a false sense of security that they should stay in place and try to ride this storm out.
I want to thank Secretary Chertoff not only personally for being here, but for the massive deployment of the federal resource, especially at the Lakefront Airport. Literally flights were coming in, going out roughly every 30 minutes. Ambulances were showing up there to evacuate critical care need patients and medical patients from nursing homes, hospitals, home- bound patients. Helicopters were taking patients from other airports to the Lakefront Airport to evacuate those patients to federal shelters outside of the state.
We couldn't have done all that without the help of our neighboring states, without the federal government air support. I want to thank him for being here and thank him for that tremendous show of support.
Secretary Chertoff?
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Well, I just wanted to say that I had the opportunity a little bit earlier today to go out to Houma and then fly into New Orleans, and to observe for myself empty streets, which normally is something that would be bad news, but in this case it's very good news.
I don't know who's hiding in their houses, trying to ride out the storm, but all estimates indicate there's a really remarkably positive response to the call for an evacuation. As the governor said, it's not too late. Although the window will close at some point, and riding out the storm is not an intelligent option for yourself, for your families.
I have to say the governor, the mayor, the parish presidents, have worked together in outstanding fashion to implement the plan for evacuation that has been built since Hurricane Katrina. This began with an early evacuation announcement, an orderly plan to begin with the lower parishes and to move everybody out.
Special attention paid to people with medical needs, which always is a challenging population in terms of movement. And because of the attention to detail, the planning, the coordination, I think we've been successful in making sure that people who want to leave are able to do so, have the physical means to get out and get into shelters.
