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CNN Live Saturday
Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath
Aired September 10, 2005 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: Praise for Texas-size hurricane relief. Vice President Dick Cheney visits the state now home to the most Katrina evacuees. He calls their response uniformly positive, but other Americans aren't that upbeat about President Bush's reaction to the disaster. We'll bring you the latest poll numbers.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And going door to door in New Orleans. Efforts to find the living and the dead as the water levels continue to drop. Word the Crescent City may be dry sooner than expected.
Welcome back to the "State of Emergency," our continuing coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
VERJEE: And I'm Zain Verjee. Let's start with the latest developments in "Mission: Critical."
It's being called an unprecedented call for help. The American Red Cross says it needs 40,000 new volunteers for its Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The appeal comes as the three-week rotation of volunteers helping out right now is about to expire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN DEGNAN, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Red Cross is putting out an appeal to people in the United States to step forward, volunteer at your chapters so that you can be trained and be prepared. And we are going to need more people. The Red Cross, in the next three months, is looking at recruiting and training 40,000 new volunteers that have never been a part of Red Cross, to come into the Red Cross ranks and be brought into the Gulf states to continue the work that the Red Cross is doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: This right here is a precious commodity among hurricane evacuees. FEMA says the $2,000 debit cards it has been handing out to storm victims are now in short supply. They're now only available to people staying at major shelters in Texas. Other evacuees can get the money in the form of a check or direct deposit to their bank accounts.
For more information, go to FEMA.gov, or call 1-800-621-FEMA. And conditions remain difficult for fighting the scattered fires throughout New Orleans. One helicopter carrying a container of water to put out the flames inside this house got snagged on some power lines, and apparently sent the chopper crashing into the floodwaters.
The recovery of bodies continues in New Orleans. CNN producer Carey Bodenheimer has been on the scene as one of the crews works at a nursing home. Carey joins us now by phone. And Carey, you described earlier that these disaster morticians went to a nursing home, and then put the markings on the outside of the building that they had found a number of bodies. What are you seeing right now?
CAREY BODENHEIMER, CNN PRODUCER: Actually, Fredricka, the markings come by search teams. Then if there are dead bodies in the home, they are left there, and the disaster mortician operational response team from FEMA proceeds to evacuate the bodies and then bring them to a makeshift morgue that -- one of which is up the river from New Orleans, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
WHITFIELD: How are these crews going about searching certain buildings, trying to traverse certain streets? How do they make the decision?
BODENHEIMER: Basically, I think what they've done is gridded out the city. I've spoken to several National Guard units, along with the 82nd Airborne, who are traversing the city, and they're doing it in a very logical way. They are doing it block by block. And they are seeing all kinds of things, dogs and people. And they are just going block to block, to see what they -- what they can find. If there are living bodies, they mark the "X," the date and the number of living bodies recovered. If there are dead bodies, they mark the "X," the date and the number of dead bodies that remain in the house. Then that's when FEMA moves in with their team of morticians.
WHITFIELD:: And again, Carey, you described if there is an "LB," living bodies, then these teams are not then conveying the message from the city of New Orleans, the New Orleans Police Department, of these mandatory evacuations -- the city has kind of gone back and forth as to whether they're going to execute These mandatory evacuations by way of force. So is there any kind of communication taking place between the living who are found in some of these buildings and any of these crews?
BODENHEIMER: Oh, absolutely. There is an appeal to the good sense and the good citizenry of the people inside, that they need to leave, that the conditions are dangerous, that fires can't be put out because there's not water. Because many areas of the city are still not reachable to fire trucks. And what they try to explain to people is the water in the streets is dirty. The water in the tap is presumably dirty, and that they really need to leave for their own safety and for the good of the city.
WHITFIELD: All right, Carey Bodenheimer, a producer with CNN, who is traveling along with those relief and rescue crews who are marking the buildings, determining whether there are living or dead in any of those structures. Now let's get more on the situation in other parts of New Orleans. CNN's Dan Simon is there and joins us now live. And, Dan, what's taking place in the area where you are?
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, there is an eerie silence in this neighborhood today. Normally on a Saturday afternoon, you might see kids riding their bikes up and down the street. But take a look today. Water as far as the eye can see. The only thing you can basically hear is the sound of dogs barking.
We know that all day, crews have been canvassing various neighborhoods, looking for the holdouts and looking for bodies. It's tough in both areas, especially recovering the bodies. We know that perhaps as many as 10,000 people might be dead in the city. However, crews now are lowering that estimate. They say there might be a significant reduction in the amount of dead in the city of New Orleans.
Now, getting the holdouts is a huge challenge. These people clearly do not want to leave their homes. They feel like they have everything they need to get by. Crews, when they find these people, they give them food and water. So in a sense, they're enabling them to stay, but things could get ugly. The police department has made it clear they don't want to use force to get these people out of their homes, but based upon what we've seen and in talking with these residents, they may have to do just that, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: All right, Dan Simon in New Orleans, thanks for that update -- Zain.
VERJEE: Fredricka, pleading and persuading, but no physical force. That's the scene right now in New Orleans, where thousands of residents continue to defy orders to leave. CNN's Jeff Koinange went along on one mission to get a holdout out of his home.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are from the church! We're not police, sir! We'd like to help you!
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The power of persuasion in times of trouble. These are members of a Christian organization who have come to New Orleans all the way from Las Vegas. Supported by the National Guard, their mission is to try to talk people like Dave Gutierrez into leaving his fast deteriorating city.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not the police!
KOINANGE: But the more they talked, it seems, the more Gutierrez resists.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he went back into the house. I'm trying to get him out again.
KOINANGE: They managed to reach Gutierrez's sister by telephone and get us to hand him the phone. DAVE GUTIERREZ, RESIDENT: Get out of here and go where?
KOINANGE: But Gutierrez isn't convinced. He retreats inside his house, but comes out a short while later.
GUTIERREZ: I'm not going to leave.
KOINANGE: Tell me why, Dave?
GUTIERREZ: Because this is my home. I live in New Orleans. This is my home.
KOINANGE: He insists if it comes to forced removals, he still won't leave.
GUTIERREZ: They can't do that to people anymore.
KOINANGE: Pastor Raymond Junta isn't about to give up. He's seen his fair share of crises, and says he's here to make sure no one gets left behind.
RAYMOND JUNTA, REV.: I was the chaplain at the World Trade Center for three months. I was the chaplain at the Oklahoma City. And I've never seen anything like this in my life to see an entire city annihilated by water. And just the despair and hopelessness in the hearts of the people is just overwhelming.
KOINANGE: In the end, Gutierrez rejects their pleas, but gladly accepts a bottle of water.
Such as the dilemma facing rescue teams across New Orleans 12 days after Hurricane Katrina left the city underwater. In most cases, these teams return to base empty handed. The few stragglers remaining simply refuse to leave.
The National Guard are under orders not to forcibly evacuate residents, even as the threat of water borne diseases mounts. Those who voluntarily agree to evacuate are brought here to a central drop- off point. They are searched, checked for injuries by a team of military physicians, and given water and food while they await the next leg of their journey to safety.
Lieutenant General Russel Honore is the man responsible for the entire ground operation. He compares this crisis to a football game, where his team is behind, but the game is far from over.
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, U.S. ARMY: We're still in the first quarter of this operation, if you make the analogy to an American football game. We're in the first quarter. And a lot of things left to be done. And we're here to make it happen.
KOINANGE: To make it happen, the general now commands a growing force of more than 19,000 military and police personnel from across the nation. And that's besides the army of volunteers that have converged on New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Jeff Koinange reporting.
President Bush has taken a battering himself in Katrina's aftermath. A brand new "Newsweek" poll puts the president's overall job approval at a mere 38 percent. Today, the president's number-two man, Vice President Dick Cheney is in the hurricane zone. CNN's Elaine Quijano joins us now from the White House with more. Elaine, Vice President Cheney really trying to focus on the positives, on the successes.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, that's right. The Bush administration, Zain, is trying to undo some of the damage caused by those initial disturbing images of desperation immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit. Vice President Dick Cheney, as you mentioned, traveled to Austin, Texas, today, meeting with evacuees as well as the emergency officials. And he thanked them for taking in Hurricane Katrina victims.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it will be a remarkable, historic event, if you will, when you consider the sheer size of the storm and the impact it's had on the country. I'm here today, one, to get educated myself, but also on behalf of the president and everybody else, to thank you very much for what you did for all of us. Good luck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: Now, the vice president toured the Austin Convention Center, which at one point was housing up to 4,200 evacuees. We're now told the number is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 1,500 people. The vice president, while he was in Austin, was asked about Secretary Michael Chertoff and the decision to remove Mike Brown, the FEMA director, from the front lines. The vice president saying that that was a decision made by Michael Chertoff, Mike Brown's boss, saying that he supported that decision.
Now, tomorrow, President Bush will make his third visit to the Gulf Coast region. The president, before he leaves the White House tomorrow, though, Zain, will observe a moment of silence out of respect for those who were killed in the September 11th attacks four years ago -- Zain.
VERJEE: Elaine, a lot of people asking now, you know, if there's another catastrophe, is the White House going to be prepared? What is the White House saying?
QUIJANO: Well, what they say is that there certainly are a lot of lessons to be learned with the response to Hurricane Katrina. They say that the time, though, to investigate is not now. The president himself said earlier this week that he will lead an investigation into what went right, into what went wrong, find out exactly -- get to the bottom of it. But at the same time, of course, this has taken on quite partisan tones, political tones, here in Washington. Democrats think it should be an independent, 9/11 Commission-style investigation. They don't believe that the president can lead an objective effort to get to the bottom of things.
Nevertheless, the White House saying that no one, more than the president, wants to find out what went wrong, saying that those images that the president saw as well were quite disturbing to him -- Zain.
VERJEE: Reporting to us this day from the White House, Elaine Quijano. Thanks, Elaine.
WHITFIELD: Well, coming up, Zain, it's the hurricane that just won't go away. Straight ahead, who's at risk because of Hurricane Ophelia?
And straight ahead, I'll speak to one of those reaching out from across the country to help the animals from the New Orleans aquarium.
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VERJEE: Parts of the East Coast are under a hurricane watch as Ophelia strengthens and moves towards shore. Jacqui Jeras is closely monitoring the storm at the CNN Weather Center. Jacqui, hi, good to see you.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Zain, good to see you, too, and hello, everybody. Hurricane Ophelia still holding strong, 80- mile-per-hour winds. It's been holding steady throughout much of the day today, and has moved very, very little.
There is a little bit of a change. The 5:00 advisory has just come in. And the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center has shifted slightly farther on up to the north, making the North Carolina coastline a little more vulnerable. But something to keep in mind here is our computer model forecasts are still all over the place. Some of them bringing it down into South Carolina. Some up into North Carolina. Others still out over the open water.
Until we start to see those come together a little bit better, we still don't have a lot of confidence in exactly where it's going. That's why we still have this cone of uncertainty still covering a very large area. Still cannot rule out the Florida coast. Still cannot rule out the Georgia coast. It's just looking more likely at this time that the Carolinas will be affected.
Now, we do have the hurricane watches, which have been posted, as you mentioned, Zain, and that extends from the Savannah River going on up towards Cape Lookout. But we're likely going to see this with the next advisory at 11:00 Eastern Time tonight, maybe shift it a little farther on up to the north to kind of match that cone of uncertainty just a little bit better.
So we're going to continue to see some changes. High pressure's going to be building into the area. And that high-pressure system is going to start to steer this storm closer to shore. But right now it's in a weak area, and we're seeing very little movement. And that's why there's so much uncertainty.
One other note, today is the 10th of September, and that is the exact peak of hurricane season. So look at it as the glass maybe half-full rather than half-empty. Back to you.
VERJEE: Jacqui, thank you.
WHITFIELD: A select group of animals has joined the ranks of evacuees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Their usual home is a well-known aquarium that's a popular attraction in New Orleans. Thousands of animals perished there, but the aquarium's caring staff mounted rescue efforts that saved so many others. Yesterday brought the emotional parting.
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TOM DYER, AQUARIUM OF THE AMERICAS: This is Patience (ph). She is the queen of this aquarium. She's going to Monterey Bay.
JOHN HEWITT, AQUARIUM OF THE AMERICAS: This is the oldest living green sea turtle in captivity. He's an old-timer. Probably, we're guessing 50, 60 years old. He spent 23 years at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island before coming here in 1992.
This group of people that I work with here and who saved these animals and this collection to the degree they did is above and beyond anything that any human could expect.
RON MOLONEY, AQUARIUM OF THE AMERICAS: (INAUDIBLE) save, because of love and passion of people, the devotion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How difficult is it going to be to say good- bye for you?
DYER: It's like your family dog, only maybe even more personal for these people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to emphasize how important the support of others zoos and aquariums across the country has been to us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Aquarium is 14 years old. It's a big part of our community, it's a big part of our history, it's going to be a big part of our future. The resurrection of New Orleans, if you will, is going to start right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She'll be back. I want her back, and I think New Orleans wants her back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: No doubt, they do. Well, two sea otters and 19 penguins are arriving right about now in California until New Orleans is safe for habitation again. Joining us now by phone, Christina Slager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So glad you could be with us, Christina. What kind of condition are the penguins and sea turtles, King Midas, in?
CHRISTINA SLAGER, MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM: Well, the sea otters and the penguins are in great shape. They flew into Monterey, landed last night about 11:17 p.m. We whisked them off to their new home, and they really did quite well on the flight.
WHITFIELD: Really? So what kind of indicators would you look to determine whether these animals are in any way stressed out by what they've been through?
SLAGER: Well, of course you'd look for obvious symptoms of respiratory distress, you know, lethargy, poor appetite, tremors, all those sorts of things.
WHITFIELD: And you're not seeing that?
SLAGER: No, we're not seeing any of that. And in fact, I saw the penguin colony this morning. And all but four of the birds ate, and they seemed quite pleased with themselves.
WHITFIELD: Wow! Are you pretty surprised and shocked? And I imagine very happy that that's the condition.
SLAGER: I am very happy. Considering what they've been through, the horrific conditions that they and, of course, the people that take care of them have endured, it's really remarkable.
WHITFIELD: So how concerned -- or should you be concerned at all about the transitioning of particularly the penguins into a new colony? You know, would it be expected that this colony might not accept all the newcomers right away?
SLAGER: It certainly would, but there's an interesting wrinkle here. This has been sort of like a family reunion, because the penguin colony here at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is related to the colony coming from the Aquarium of the Americas.
WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh.
SLAGER: Now, of course, the new birds are in quarantine. We are not going to put them on exhibit until we're sure that they don't have any medical problems. But they all recognize each other, and in some cases, they are related to each other.
WHITFIELD: Oh, so cousins are finding cousins again.
SLAGER: It's a big family reunion.
WHITFIELD: Wow! So is that why, in part, you all came to the rescue, that you knew that this might be an easy transition, at least for this pretty sizable penguin population?
SLAGER: Well, I think certainly that was part of it, but more like so many of us in the aquarium and zoo profession, we really wanted to do something to help other organizations. And for me, in particular, I worked at the Aquarium of the Americas for five years. So I'm particularly happy that we could just do some small thing that might alleviate some of the hardship they're going through.
WHITFIELD: Now, there were other survivors from the aquarium in New Orleans. Some sea dragons from Australia. They made it. Actually, some of the tiger sharks did as well. And some makos (ph). What will happen to them? Will you be opening your doors to some of those residents as well?
SLAGER: Well, we would love to, but actually, the weedy and leafy sea dragons are off to an aquarium in Texas, as is King Midas, the giant sea turtle. So we're sort of splitting the wealth here.
WHITFIELD: Wow. So will all of these animals, one day again, be reunited? Will they find their way back to New Orleans or might we be looking at the fact that these animals have been relocated, it would just be too much to relocated them one more time?
SLAGER: Oh, I don't think so. I think that fortunately, with the proper transportation methods, they could be relocated a number of times. And of course, everyone in our profession hopes that the Aquarium of the Americas is back up and open as soon as possible.
WHITFIELD: We're all looking for that. I've visited it, and it's an incredible aquarium. Christina Slager out of Monterey Bay Aquarium, thank you so much.
SLAGER: My pleasure.
WHITFIELD: And good luck to you and your efforts and all the other creatures out there.
SLAGER: Thank you very much.
WHITFIELD: All right -- Zain.
VERJEE: Fredricka, coming up, why did it take so long to get troops on the ground in the wake of hurricane Katrina? Find out what the Pentagon is saying. That's just ahead.
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VERJEE: The federal government's already been criticized for not getting military troops and supplies into the New Orleans area much more quickly, and some inside the Pentagon have identified a major flaw in the response plan. We hear more from CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even before any formal analysis of what could have been done better in responding to Katrina, one thing seems clear: The plan to rely on local officials to be the first responders failed. DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The natural disaster was of, as they say, biblical proportion. And that means that a number of the first responders, or those who would have been first responders under our constitution and under our laws were in fact victims.
MCINTYRE: Five days into the disaster when President Bush was touring the devastation, there was still confusion over who should be in charge. Pentagon officials say in a meeting on Air Force One, the president offered several plans to unify the chain of command to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. But she never accepted.
RAY NAGIN, MAYOR, NEW ORLEANS: She said she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could have left Air Force One, walked outside and told the world that we had this all worked out.
MCINTYRE: In fact, the Pentagon insists the lack of agreement had little practical effect. Because by that time, Lieutenant General Russel Honore was firmly in charge and federal troops were on the way without any additional state requests. But Pentagon officials say that points to just one area, where a better plan could streamline the deployment of military assets when state and local governments are clearly overwhelmed.
RUMSFELD: I think there's no question that the president's indicated he intends to review how those things are arranged and what might be done.
MCINTYRE: The U.S. Northern Command says some 50 military personnel are already on the ground conducting an exhaustive review of what needs to be fixed.
(on camera): Pentagon officials say one option that was discussed by the White House was federalizing or taking charge of the relief operation over the objections of Louisiana's governor.
One official described that as tantamount to an invasion of the state, and said that by late last week when things were getting better, the idea was rejected as unnecessary and heavy-handed. Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Straight ahead, two sisters, separated from their mother by Katrina. We'll show how determination and a little Internet savvy brought this family back together again. Very happily.
And life in the bayou may never be the same for the shrimp boat men of Louisiana. Can they rebuild now that Hurricane Katrina has destroyed everything they own?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VERJEE: Welcome back. Welcome back. Here's what's going on now in the news. Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces have swept into Talafar, an insurgent stronghold near the Syrian border. They're conducting house-to-house searches for insurgents there. Iraqi officials say dozens of insurgents have been killed or captured.
The Pentagon has opened a September 11th memorial to the public for one day. The site includes a black and stone marker where American Airlines flight 77 hit the building. In the past, the memorial was only available to the families of victims and groups with reservations.
An unmanned Russian cargo ship has brought supplies to the crew on board the International Space Station. It docked there earlier today. The two-person crew is getting 2.5 tons of food and fuel as well as equipment. They're scheduled to return to Earth on the 10th of October, after six months in space.
Some of Biloxi, Mississippi's tourists and residents refused to evacuate in the approach the Katrina. One of the reasons was really lack of money. For others, it was an overwhelming sense that God would protect them. CNN's Allan Chernoff spoke to one man who credits his faith for his life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the floodwaters reached five feet in Daniel Jackson's home, he, his wife and daughter, began to pray.
DANIEL JACKSON, BILOXI RESIDENT: We prayed. And 10 minutes after we prayed, you know, the water started dropping in the house.
CHERNOFF (on camera): What prayer did you say?
JACKSON: Oh, man, we prayed, you know. I prayed, you know, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): His desires are few. But now after the hurricane, Mr. Jackson's needs are great. His wife and daughter left for a shelter. He stayed, even though virtually everything in the house is ruined. And the stench of mildew is everywhere. The house itself was pushed off its foundation.
(on camera): They say that the weather forecasters were predicting yet another huge storm to hit the Mississippi coast. Are you staying?
JACKSON: I would stay. I would stay, you know, like I said, we had stayed before. I put my faith in God, because, you know, I feel like by me staying here, I mean, it couldn't be no worse than this. You see what I'm saying? Because this hurricane is a lot worse than Camille. If I pass this test, I think I could pass the rest of them.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Jackson, a 59-year-old former maintenance worker, has a herniated disk in his back and a bum knee. With only $600 in the bank, he and his wife, who has cancer, live off of disability checks.
Jackson had no flood insurance, so he expects his policy may not pay out. (on camera): Are you angry at all?
JACKSON: Not at all. No. Not a time to be angry. You know, it's a time to rejoice. We don't worry about material things in these -- at these times. What we can assign by here is our lives.
CHERNOFF (voice-over): Daniel Jackson is a man of faith. The National Guard and Red Cross are providing for him now, and he says the Lord will provide for him in the future.
JACKSON: I feel I'm a blessed man.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: When Hurricane Katrina blasted ashore, it literally tore apart hundreds of families along the Gulf Coast. Now, desperate parents and frightened children are scrambling to find each other again. With more on what's being done to reunite them, let's go to CNN's Kathleen Koch, at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Virginia. And are they having any progress since we last spoke?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are. They're having a lot of progress. And we're going to take you to someone who will tell you a story right now, but I want you to know that the people in this room are working virtually around the clock. These are law enforcement officers, men and women from the FBI, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, from law enforcement organizations around the country. These are tough people. They deal with tough characters all the time, but this is really a very heart-wrenching job for them. But sometimes they have some successes.
And let's talk to Bill Hagemeyer, who's here with us now. And he was formerly chief of the FBI's child abduction and serial killer unit. You just had a remarkable success. Tell us about it.
BILL HAGEMEYER, FBI: A few minutes ago, a lady called from Florida and she was very concerned about her cousin. She was sure they were washed away when the levee broke. And we checked all the normal data banks, and they weren't in there. And my partner, who is also from the FBI, has just found another obscure data bank where she was located, and we just hooked them up. She's in Georgia. It's a happy ending for this family.
KOCH: How different is this kind of work you're doing from, again, what you used to do with the FBI? And how did what you learned then, how is that helping you now in what you're doing?
HAGEMEYER: Well, the steps are different because we're not hands on. We're thousands of miles away from the people we're talking to. However, investigative backgrounds collectively of the people in this room are literally thousands of years. They're taking it a step further. They are going beyond just recording the information. They're making the phone calls, they are checking all the databases, they are using all their experience over the years to make a lot of these matches. KOCH: Bill Hagemeyer, thank you so much.
Now, what we'd now like to do is show a couple of photos of some of the 1,800-plus children still missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. First of all, there's a little 4-year-old girl. Her name is Ann McRae. And she's one of those missing from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. She was last seen in Gulfport, Mississippi, with her mother. Her date of birth is March 8th, 2001. Again, she has not been seen since the day that the storm struck.
And then we have a photo of a little boy. He's also 4. And he has been found, but no one knows where his parents are. His name is Lynzell King, again, 4 years old, date of birth, October 3rd, 2000. Now, he was found September 3rd in New Orleans. What we'd like is, again, if anyone knows either of these children, knows their whereabouts, whereabouts of any family members, to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And perhaps we'll have another happy reunion, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Kathleen, what kind of special measures are being taken for those special circumstances when you've got children who are too young to be able to state what their names are?
KOCH: Well, it's very, very difficult. What they've put on the Web site is they put the best description that they can come up with. And obviously, all sorts of identifying characteristics, birthmarks, scars, things like that. But it's really very, very heart wrenching work when the children either are too young to tell you, or in some cases, we've heard about children who are too traumatized. They do know how to speak, but they're simply so frightened, so terrified because of what they've been through, they don't want to even give anyone their name.
WHITFIELD: Sure. And they don't know who to trust. All right, Kathleen Koch, thank you so much, from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So the Web site is MissingKids.com if you have any information -- Zain.
VERJEE: You know, Fredricka, it's hard enough to imagine what it was like for families forced to ride out the storm in places like the Superdome. But for a pair of New Orleans teenagers, things got even worse when they got separated from their mom and sent hundreds of miles away from the massive shelter. Keith Oppenheim has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you have an idea of what happened to your home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah. It's underwater.
OPPENHEIM: Is it a house? An apartment?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A house.
OPPENHEIM (voice-over): They finish each other's sentences and sometimes speak at the same time; 14-year-old Iesha on the right and her 16-year-old sister Keevon are inseparable. For a week, they've been living in a shelter in Longview, a city in northeast Texas, with neighbors, but no family. The girls escaped their flooded New Orleans neighborhood and went to the Superdome with their mom. And then, they say, inside the dome, there was what appeared to be a fire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was smoke everywhere.
OPPENHEIM (on camera): Was there actually a fire at the Superdome because I didn't hear about that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said it was like a smoke bomb to get everybody outside. But I don't know for sure.
OPPENHEIM: But this created confusion?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, and that's the last time I seen my mom.
OPPENHEIM (voice-over): Their mama is Hermelda James who says she was told in the confusion to quickly get on a bus to Houston, where she believed she would find her daughters at the Astrodome. She didn't.
HERMELDA JAMES, KEEVON & IESHA'S MOTHER: Just confused, worried. I had nightmares. I just -- I could sleep but I just couldn't get any rest.
OPPENHEIM: In New Orleans one day later, the girls got on a bus that took them from the Superdome in a different direction, to this shelter in Longview, with no idea what happened to their mother.
IESHA JAMES: It's like we don't know where she's at. We ain't never had this experience before.
OPPENHEIM: But computer-savvy Keevon went online, hoping to make a connection.
KEEVON JAMES: I put the number here. I put the address here, everything so she could still -- like if, she'd go check on a computer again, that she would know the number to call us here.
OPPENHEIM: It worked. Hermelda eventually went to the special Web site set up by Yahoo! and found what she was looking for.
H. JAMES: I'm nervous. I'm happy. I'm anxious. I'm thankful.
OPPENHEIM: When CNN learned the connection was made, we put Hermelda on a plane to get her girls. At noon on Thursday, Iesha and Keevon waited at the shelter, nearly 400 miles away --
H. JAMES: I'm wondering how my children look.
OPPENHEIM: Until finally, she arrived.
H. JAMES: They're alive. They're well. They look like they kept themselves up. They're just beautiful.
OPPENHEIM: It's hard to know where to begin to list all the uncertainties facing this family -- where they will live, work, go to school. It's all unresolved. But now they understand the pain of separation. They believe they can figure out their future together. Is it sort of like that, you know, part of you gets lost?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah. Lost, and I couldn't find her.
OPPENHEIM: And is that part of you back?
H. JAMES: Yes. I'm full, all my pieces together. My puzzle is finished.
Love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you, too, mom.
H. JAMES: Love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love you, too.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Nice to see those smiles.
Coming up, when a hurricane destroys everything you have, where do you start to rebuild? You'll hear from some of Louisiana's tough shrimp boat men straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Confusion erupted in Houston today over government aid to evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. A number of people descended on the city's Reliant Park complex after FEMA announced it would distribute debit cards worth $2,000. When the people arrived, they learned the cards were not available. But that aid could be received through direct deposit or a check received by mail. FEMA officials say the aid is intended only for evacuees staying in major shelters.
For questions concerning the debit card program, here's the FEMA Web site: FEMA.gov. FEMA's toll-free number is 1-800-621-FEMA.
VERJEE: We want to take a look now at one of the outlying areas that was really brought to its knees by Katrina. The bayou country that's just south of New Orleans. CNN's Karl Penhaul is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is everybody's main source of income.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): Shrimp boats lie battered or split apart by the storm. Their nets are tangled.
RAY BRADHURST, SHRIMPER: Lost our homes, our business and our boat all in one shot. Everything. Everything is gone in a matter of hours.
PENHAUL: Ray Bradhurst and his best friend, Bubba Menesses, fled St. Bernard's Parish when the hurricane lashed the Gulf Coast. Now they're back to see what they can salvage of their livelihoods.
BRADHURST: Trying to stabilize the boat from rolling over.
BUBBA MENESSES, SHRIMPER: When we top it out, it just raises up on us and it just wants to roll.
BRADHURST: It raises the stern and it's starting to roll.
PENHAUL: The shrimp industry is the economic lifeblood of the Louisiana bayous around New Orleans. Bubba comes from three generations of shrimpers.
MENESSES: I mean, this is what we do. This is what we know. It's the only thing we know. So I think we'll just have to stick it out and see what happens.
PENHAUL: No doubt it's going to be tough. Ray's 47 foot trawler cost him $175,000. Not a cent insured. On top of that, shrimp prices are already at their lowest in years because of international competition. But there's still pride here. Bubba insists that bayou shrimps are the best.
MENESSES: You can barbecue them. You can fry them. You can boil them. You can stir fry them. You can put them in egg rolls. They stuff them in bell peppers.
PENHAUL: The pair live a short drive from the dock and asked us to take them.
BRADHURST: This will be the first time we get all the way to it, to see just what the devastation is. Take a long time for this community to come back. A long time.
PENHAUL: Ray's company, Rebel Seafood, is in bad shape.
BRADHURST: Boy, I thought it was bad, but I never dreamt it was this bad. Wow.
PENHAUL: You can smell the 3,000 pounds of shrimp rotting in one of those containers.
MENESSES: (INAUDIBLE), you got to get up and clean them shrimp up, man, that stinks.
BRADHURST: Get busy.
PENHAUL: The water is still deep in Chalmette, a town in St. Bernard's Parish. We tried to wade to Ray's house and meet Derek, one of Ray's neighbors. He's draped in a flag he managed to save from his flooded home. Derek opted to stay behind. Like many others, he's mad at what he sees as a slow and chaotic response in the relief effort.
DEREK, CHALMETTE RESIDENT: I'll tell you know, our government, what a joke, government! FEMA! Bush!
PENHAUL: The water's too deep to wade through, so he gives Ray a ride in the canoe. When Ray returns, the news is not good.
BRADHURST: I didn't get out and go look at it. The house is intact, but it is just the water was up almost over the entire roof. There's debris all the way to the top of the roof. It is a disaster. I mean, a mess.
PENHAUL: Getting to Bubba's in the next village down proves a little easier. As we draw into his neighborhood, he's nervous.
MENESSES: I used to have a beautiful neighborhood.
PENHAUL: As he reaches his home, he realizes the huge tidal surge and thick mud has ruined almost all that he's worked for.
MENESSES: She was hoping it wouldn't break. She's going to save some of them.
PENHAUL: Outside, Bubba shakes his head. But men like Bubba and Ray are a hardy breed, or maybe just plain stubborn.
MENESSES: Can't fish and shrimp from a mountaintop in Tennessee. You need to fish and shrimp from South Louisiana and the bayous.
PENHAUL: Their roots are here and they know no other way to live.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Bayou Bienvenue, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VERJEE: Carol Lin joins us now with a preview of what's to come on her show. Carol, what do you have planned at 6:00 Eastern?
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Zain, obviously we've been focusing on the human tragedy of this, but also thousands of furry little victims are out there needing to be rescued as well. The Humane Society has been struggling to get to them. They can't get into the hurricane zone, but a different group has been able to come to the rescue. I'll be talking about that at 6:00.
And at 10:00, we're going to be focusing on missing children. About 200 have been reunited with their families, but there are so many more in these shelters, Zain. They're trying to get matched up with their parents. And of course, some of the victims' rights groups are worried that these children may be in danger themselves in the shelters. So we'll be talking about that at 10:00 Eastern tonight.
VERJEE: OK. Carol Lin, thanks a lot.
LIN: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Also, coming up, veterans of hurricane damage in Florida come to the aid of Katrina's Gulf Coast victims. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: If any state is familiar with the devastation wrought by hurricanes, it has to be Florida. And Floridians are responding to the havoc caused by Katrina in countless different ways. Here's one group that's taking matters into its own hands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're from Delvin (ph), Florida. And we came here to help the people out. We got sick of sitting around and watching TV and seeing all this destruction. We had to do something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have a baby in there?
It's the biggest disaster in the history. And people were never prepared for that. There's only so much they can do. And there's so much we can do. So I think everybody that has the means to get anything done here, they should.
We went into local bars and restaurants. Anything that I could think of that I needed after the last hurricane, I put down here. We're trying to get to people that nobody can get to right now. It's sad. (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody's organized here. So that's why we're not sitting at one spot to drop off everything, because most places here got water. They need ice. They need more food.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They need more food. We had all the food and water in front, and then all the clothing in the back. We have brand-new infant clothes, pet supplies, dog food, cat food. We got leashes. As we're speaking right now, there are people in Melbourne, Florida, still collecting. And I'm trying to make another trip up here in the next couple of days.
So you have a total of what, 30 people living here now?
I'm pretty frustrated because now we ran out of blankets and pillows. And that's what they really need right now, too. And we just don't have it anymore. Other than that, I feel pretty good because there's things that I can give to them. They obviously need them, and they're very thankful for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITIFIELD: We can't get through this tragedy without the number of volunteers who are helping out in so many different ways. And that exemplifies that, from Florida throughout the Gulf Coast.
VERJEE: It's been really amazing. And the Red Cross saying they need even more volunteers this day, 40,000 more. And in our next hour, we're going to take a look at how some of the animal victims of Katrina are faring.
I'm Zain Verjee. WHITFIELD: And I'm Fredricka Whitfield. This is CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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