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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Gifford Miller

Aired August 16, 2003 - 12:10   ET

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

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


THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: We take everybody back to New York City where we're joined, now, by Gifford Miller. He's the speaker of the city council; also he's been going around visiting various parts of the Big Apple to monitor the recovery, there.
Gifford, great to have you with us, once again, on CNN.

GIFFORD MILLER, CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER: Nice to see you.

ROBERTS: Let's first begin with what you've been seeing as you've been traveling around. What are you finding out there in the city?

MILLER: Well, you find New Yorkers really responded extraordinarily well to the situation. I think, actually, sort of sadly, but since September 11, New Yorkers are more ready for a crisis like this. Just speaking for myself, my wife works on the 40th floor of a building, had a go bag with sneakers and a flashlight, and was prepared to walk down the steps and walk home. We had water at home and batteries and flashlights. So, a lot of New Yorkers had similar readiness and then a lot of people just pitched in and helped. You know, you saw a lot of people out in the streets helping their neighbors, bringing them food. I went to a senior center, home attendants there took the seniors they were with home and spent the night with them. A lot of people being heroic and really, our firefighters and police officers kept the city safe, it was very encouraging.

ROBERTS: Gifford, hindsight 20/20, so far, what's going to take place the next time the city council meets? What's the first thing on your agenda?

MILLER: Well, I think that along with the rest of the country, we want to know what happened and what we can do here locally, as well as, nationally to make sure it doesn't happen again, because while there are a lot of good stories here, the bottom line is -- is that because of some outage somewhere, whether it's in Cleveland or Canada, doesn't really matter, it shouldn't wipe out the financial center of the world for 24 hours, that's just unacceptable.

ROBERTS: And, what are some of the people, as you're touring around New York City -- what are some of the people coming up to you saying are their major concerns?

MILLER: Well, you know, it really depended upon where you are in the city. For the people who got their power back quickly, they felt better. For the people who got their power back more slowly, it was frustrating. But, I think that most people's concerns are about what can be done to avoid this sort of situation again. Particularly for those who lost water because they were in tall buildings with electrical systems that were necessary to pump water up. You know, I can -- I feel for the people across this country who don't have access to water, because that's a major problem in a crisis like this one.

ROBERTS: And is the city council, there, going to take an approach, I guess, of more conservativism for people living there in the city, to tell them -- maybe we should cut back a touch even though the city hasn't had much of a heat wave, up until now, but telling people some people there -- hey, we need to cut back?

MILLER: Well I think we need look, of course, at conserving energy. We also need to consider what the thrust of deregulation has done for our area and for this country. The independent service operator is this sort of faceless group which really regulated the way that power came back on and there are concerns that they favored upstate as opposed to New York City during some of the 24 hour period. And I think deregulation generally has not really brought lower prices, so there are a lot of concerns about the current system and the thrust of where we've been going.

ROBERTS: Well, we appreciate you taking time to talk with us today. Gifford Miller speaker of the city council for New York City.

MILLER: My pleasure.

ROBERTS: We hope your AC is working for, so when you get home this Saturday, you can enjoy yourself for the afternoon.

Gifford, thanks very much.

MILLER: Thank you.

ROBERTS: And, for more on the waning power outage, you can go to CNN.com and you're going to get all the information that you need to know about the great blackout of 2003, it's a great guide.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired August 16, 2003 - 12:10   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THOMAS ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: We take everybody back to New York City where we're joined, now, by Gifford Miller. He's the speaker of the city council; also he's been going around visiting various parts of the Big Apple to monitor the recovery, there.
Gifford, great to have you with us, once again, on CNN.

GIFFORD MILLER, CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER: Nice to see you.

ROBERTS: Let's first begin with what you've been seeing as you've been traveling around. What are you finding out there in the city?

MILLER: Well, you find New Yorkers really responded extraordinarily well to the situation. I think, actually, sort of sadly, but since September 11, New Yorkers are more ready for a crisis like this. Just speaking for myself, my wife works on the 40th floor of a building, had a go bag with sneakers and a flashlight, and was prepared to walk down the steps and walk home. We had water at home and batteries and flashlights. So, a lot of New Yorkers had similar readiness and then a lot of people just pitched in and helped. You know, you saw a lot of people out in the streets helping their neighbors, bringing them food. I went to a senior center, home attendants there took the seniors they were with home and spent the night with them. A lot of people being heroic and really, our firefighters and police officers kept the city safe, it was very encouraging.

ROBERTS: Gifford, hindsight 20/20, so far, what's going to take place the next time the city council meets? What's the first thing on your agenda?

MILLER: Well, I think that along with the rest of the country, we want to know what happened and what we can do here locally, as well as, nationally to make sure it doesn't happen again, because while there are a lot of good stories here, the bottom line is -- is that because of some outage somewhere, whether it's in Cleveland or Canada, doesn't really matter, it shouldn't wipe out the financial center of the world for 24 hours, that's just unacceptable.

ROBERTS: And, what are some of the people, as you're touring around New York City -- what are some of the people coming up to you saying are their major concerns?

MILLER: Well, you know, it really depended upon where you are in the city. For the people who got their power back quickly, they felt better. For the people who got their power back more slowly, it was frustrating. But, I think that most people's concerns are about what can be done to avoid this sort of situation again. Particularly for those who lost water because they were in tall buildings with electrical systems that were necessary to pump water up. You know, I can -- I feel for the people across this country who don't have access to water, because that's a major problem in a crisis like this one.

ROBERTS: And is the city council, there, going to take an approach, I guess, of more conservativism for people living there in the city, to tell them -- maybe we should cut back a touch even though the city hasn't had much of a heat wave, up until now, but telling people some people there -- hey, we need to cut back?

MILLER: Well I think we need look, of course, at conserving energy. We also need to consider what the thrust of deregulation has done for our area and for this country. The independent service operator is this sort of faceless group which really regulated the way that power came back on and there are concerns that they favored upstate as opposed to New York City during some of the 24 hour period. And I think deregulation generally has not really brought lower prices, so there are a lot of concerns about the current system and the thrust of where we've been going.

ROBERTS: Well, we appreciate you taking time to talk with us today. Gifford Miller speaker of the city council for New York City.

MILLER: My pleasure.

ROBERTS: We hope your AC is working for, so when you get home this Saturday, you can enjoy yourself for the afternoon.

Gifford, thanks very much.

MILLER: Thank you.

ROBERTS: And, for more on the waning power outage, you can go to CNN.com and you're going to get all the information that you need to know about the great blackout of 2003, it's a great guide.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com