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Live From...
Feeling the Fury of Katrina
Aired August 29, 2005 - 14:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Feeling the fury. Welcome back to our continuing coverage now of Hurricane Katrina. I'm Kyra Phillips, and this is your hurricane headquarters. Here are the latest developments that we can tell you right now.
The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Katrina to a Category 2 storm as it moves north over Mississippi. Winds have slowed to 105 miles per hour. Still very powerful and very damaging.
Katrina has devastated many communities since making landfall this morning. One of the hardest hit is Gulfport, Mississippi. Up to 10 to 12 feet of water now covers its downtown.
A CNN correspondent on the scene says that massive flooding has turned the city into hell on Earth. Actually, it was our Gary Tuchman that told us that.
And New Orleans was spared a direct hit, believe it or not. Still, though, Katrina brought incredible rain and wind gusts of 120 miles per hour to the city. You're seeing the destruction right now.
Entire neighborhoods submerged up to the rooflines in many parts of the area there. The wind damaged the roof of the Superdome, home to thousands of storm refugees. The director of the National Hurricane Center warns that the Big Easy will be under the gun all day now.
And for a look at the big picture, we go straight to meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. She's in the CNN weather center. Been very busy.
Hi, Jacqui.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Kyra.
Well, it looks like we're starting to see a little bit of a turn now to the north and the east. The hurricane has been moving northward about 17 miles per hour. It's also picked up a little bit of forward speed, so the faster this thing gets out of here the better.
There you can seen on the satellite picture from our Viper system, it's starting to pull a little bit, we think, northeasterly. And so that's going to be bringing it a little bit closer in to some of the bigger cities.
Let's go back to our other source now, over to our Titan system, and show you the radar picture. And we'll get a good idea of that center of circulation if we can go back to that.
There you can see it. Here's Hattiesburg, and that was looping. And there you can see the loop in motion. And now that it's pulling northeast, this will bring the center a little bit closer to Hattiesburg, rather than off to its west. And that is going to provide more damage, we think, on the eastern side of town.
Huge storm still. This thing is absolutely enormous. This is the satellite imagery, the visible satellite. And we're going to show you how many thousands of miles this thing spans.
From north to south, it's approximately 1,300 miles. The tropical storm-force winds are still extending out more than 400 miles from the center of the storm. So we're still getting quite a battering over a large part of the country.
Some of those winds we were talking about, just got a report out of Mobile right now of 71 miles per hour. We saw some very intense maximum wind gusts earlier today. Still the threat of tornadoes will exist.
This light red area is where we have the tornado watch still in effect. And all of these counties here, these are isolated possible tornadoes, radar-indicated tornadoes. Very common in systems like this.
And these few counties right here around Louisiana and Mississippi state line right there, that's where the eye of the storm, because we're still looking at sustained winds, 105 miles per hour. So that's like an F2 tornado.
Those kinds of winds can still blow a mobile home right off of its foundation, to give you an idea of how serious and how strong this storm still is. In fact, we're still expecting this to be a Category 1 later on this evening.
Here's some of the peak wind reports that we've seen so far: Pascagoula, the highest one I've seen, at 118 miles per hour; Dauphin Island, Alabama, 102; 100 in Gulfport; Belle Chase, Louisiana, at 96; 88, that was actually just to the south and east of New Orleans; and Pensacola, 69 miles per hour.
The track is going to be turning up to the north and the east, as I mentioned. It's going to be curving through Mississippi throughout the day and night tonight. By tomorrow morning, we'll be watching this move into western parts of Tennessee, making its way all the way into the Ohio River Valley.
By that time, we're still going to be seeing some gusty winds, probably up to a tropical storm force. And flooding then will become the main concern, the inland flooding of four to eight inches expected -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Jacqui, thanks so much.
And New Orleans, Louisiana, sure is feeling that flooding already. Our John Zarrella on the phone from us from New Orleans.
John, tell us where you are. Describe what you're seeing and what you know to this point.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, we're on a road that's known as -- called Elysian Fields. And if you follow Elysian Fields out to the north shore, it takes you right up to Lake Ponchatrain, the north shore. And it's impassable.
The whole area here on the roads, everything is under water. It's not exceedingly deep. You can get a car through it to a certain point, and then you can go no further.
It's knee deep in some areas, ankle deep in other areas. But almost every cross street, every street you go on, there is some degree of water.
This is, of course, a bowl. And with all this rain continuing to fall, it is continuing to fill the bowl. And there's just no way that the pumping stations that are still operating can get all this water out of the city.
It's just -- what we are seeing, the sides of buildings, where the water is certainly in on the first floors here on some of the buildings at this intersection. We saw a man inside. He couldn't open the door to come out. If he did, he'd let the water race in.
A lot of -- a lot of trees down. I have not seen a lot of structural damage. We have seen some buildings where the facades have come off, where the brick fronts have come off.
A lot of power lines are down everywhere. Power poles are down. Big trees are down everywhere.
But the one thing, I guess the fortunate part, Kyra, is we do not see, at least where we are, any major structural damage. The big thing is the water. And it is literally everywhere. And New Orleans may not have taken that direct devastating hit from this storm, but it is certainly a mess, to put it lightly -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Now John, have officials there, city officials, told you when exactly they're going to be able to start responding, pumping that water out, getting streets cleared, and allowing people to come back home? I think that's what a lot of people are wondering. They got the heck out of there in the past 24 hours, they want to know when they're going to be able to get back in and get home.
ZARRELLA: Well, I'll tell you, the situation is this, first, they still need to assess the situation with the pumping stations. We understand that a couple of them are out and not functioning now. Until they can get the water pumped out -- and that may take days -- it's going to be impossible to let the people come back in here.
Another thing -- and officials are not even out yet to assess the situation. We've seen a couple of police cars, but very few. In fact, an hour or so ago, we ran into a supermarket where there was extensive looting going on, where people were just coming out with shopping carts filled with food and loading their cars and driving off with it.
So that was one isolated area. We have not seen that again or anywhere else.
But clearly, we are still in the back end of the storm. It is still gusty here. It is windy. And the rain has just not stopped.
So impossible for officials at this point to even get out to assess how bad it is and how long it's going to take to get the water out before people can come home. But clearly, that's not happening today or tomorrow -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: John, what area was the looting? And that's a shame that people are taking advantage of this situation and...
ZARRELLA: Well, it was off of St. Charles Street, and that's all I can tell you. A lot of the street signs were down. That was the only cross street that we saw on St. Charles. And it was an area where we couldn't drive any further because the water had gotten too high. And off to our left we noticed a Winn-Dixie and, in fact, that was where that looting was taking place. But fortunately, we have not seen any other signs of that -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So, I've got to ask you -- you know, I talked to Jeanne Meserve, and she said, "Well, it looks like this city didn't get hit as hard as folks there thought." It's just not as bad as they thought it was going to be.
Would you come to the same conclusion?
ZARRELLA: Oh, clearly. The storm having veered off to the right, there's no question about it.
They got extraordinarily lucky here, because just seeing what we are seeing -- and the fact is, they did not even get the eyewall over the city of New Orleans, not even the weak western eyewall. What we see here is going to be considerable extensive damage from the flooding, from the trees, from the power lines. But what it might have been had that storm not taken that little right jog, who knows how bad it would have been here considering what we're seeing from just the degree of the storm that they did -- they did get. But I agree with Jeanne, certainly it's nowhere near what they expected or what could have happened here.
PHILLIPS: All right. John Zarrella there on the phone with us via New Orleans. John, thank you so much.
And there's so much to tell you about New Orleans, so much history. There's those majestic homes in the Garden District. An owner said -- actually, owners of those homes that live in that area say they have to be wondering about the strength of the plywood right now, because in some cases that's all that stands between Katrina's destructive power and antique windows and doors. As its name implies, that section of New Orleans is filled with decorative flowerbeds. Katrina's rains are expected to unmercifully trash them. You'll remember it's the Garden District. You know, "A Streetcar Named Desire," that's where it was based out of.
And the Garden District is also home to Tulane University. Many of the school's students have been bused to Jackson, Mississippi, we're told, out of there, to get out of harm's way. We're told even the football team high-tailed out of there, and they're continuing -- or it's continuing its practice in Jackson.
Well, the higher the floodwaters go, the greater the concern for some of New Orleans' oldest residents, those buried in the city's legendary cemeteries. Oh yes, some of those tombs and vaults are more than 250 years old. And with the city's flooding history, most of them are six feet above ground, set row upon row.
The oldest is St. Peter's Cemetery, and that's in the French Quarter. And there's interesting little history behind that, too. You can go visit the famous Voodoo Queen. She's buried in there also. And also, can you name the famous musician who's also buried in that cemetery? I'll tell you that later on.
But first, in the Garden District, it was LaFayette Number One. You may recognize it from movies such as "Double Jeopardy" and "Interview with a Vampire," and the vampire books by Anne Rice.
A lot of history, and many a times during these type of storms, I don't even want to tell you what possibly floats out of there. But anyway, good news. We haven't had any reports of that today.
All right. Mobile, Alabama, another area well known for just hanging in there when it comes to hurricanes like Katrina. And it's not as bad, according to Kathleen Koch, as a lot of people thought it was going to be.
Are they out of the woods yet, Kathleen?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right here in Mobile, they are certainly not out of the woods yet. But a lot of people still who came here, who evacuated to Mobile from the New Orleans area, from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, are still very much happier to be in Mobile despite the beating that we're taking here than they are to be in their homes.
And we've talked to a lot of people. Very interesting stories. People who've evacuated to this hotel, again, families say -- well, one of them -- they live in a trailer park here in Mobile, so they came here to evacuate up.
Then some of us who were on the very upper floors in this 17- story hotel had to rapidly, when the storm got very bad early this morning, we had to evacuate down, because the wind was pushing the rain from Hurricane Katrina in with such force it was coming right into your windows, even though your windows were sealed and you were not able to open them. I had literally a waterfall coming down my windowsill.
So we evacuated down to lower floors. And we talked to someone today, a gentleman who came here with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help people pick up the pieces when this is all over. And he lives north of New Orleans, about 60, 70 miles north.
He got a call from his family and his home, and now there is a roof -- I mean a tree on top of their roof, a hole in their roof, the rain pouring in. So now he has to go home and (INAUDIBLE) pick up the pieces.
But there is something that's very interesting I wish we could show you. We'll get some video of it a little bit later. But here, when we came to this hotel yesterday, a beautiful big American flag draped hanging from the front of the hotel. And it's now in tatters.
It's been simply shredded by the winds that -- I believe the strongest gusts they're saying we're having here now in Mobile, they're about 83 miles an hour. But it's just a sign of how rough it has been and how important the curfew is that they just put into effect in the last hour.
The officials, emergency officials just want no one out here on the streets. Trees are coming down, power lines are coming down. They don't want anyone to get hurt, and they also want to make sure that the emergency responders can stay safe because their lives, their health is in jeopardy if they have to come out here and rescue someone who did something foolish -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Kathleen Koch, live from Mobile, Alabama, there.
These pictures coming to us via our affiliate WKRG. Thanks to Kathleen. Thanks to our affiliate as we continue to follow what's happening.
Still ongoing situation there in Mobile, Alabama. But after a quick break, we're going to take you back to New Orleans, Louisiana, where folks there -- well, at least the folks that stayed -- really felt Hurricane Katrina. Not as bad as they expected, but we'll take you there live and show you more.
Fresh video and fresh report. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Hurricane Katrina. Feeling the effects from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to Gulfport, Mississippi; Biloxi, Mississippi; and Mobile, Alabama.
We want to go back now to Biloxi, where we had been talking about what the governor had been saying, water damage to the casino, some destruction and some flooding going on in Gulfport and Biloxi. A very popular tourist area right now. A lot of people had gone there for their summer vacations.
Where it stands right now, we're going to check in with Jonathan Freed, coming to us via telephone from Biloxi.
We had kind of a hard time getting live pictures out of there, but from what I'm being told, John, has it settled down a little bit? Have things calmed down like what we've seen in New Orleans?
JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no. And that's exactly why I thought I should call in, Kyra.
The winds are still 50, 60 miles an hour, perhaps gusting up to even around 75. We've had to drop the dishes on our satellite trucks that are here for safety reasons, and we even had some debris from the hotel fall on and around some of the trucks. It wasn't very hard debris, but nevertheless, that's the situation here.
You don't really recognize this hotel from just a few hours ago. You have the roof torn apart in places. There is debris all over the place. Windows have blown out in people's rooms upstairs, and the air so strong that people have to hold the doors back to allow the people inside to escape. And as soon as you let go of the door, Kyra, it just slams shut.
People are huddled in the lobby here. The place looks like a kennel there are so many dogs and cats running around. Plenty of kids to play with them, though.
The kids just not seeming phased by what's going on. Just a terrific adventure from their point of view. But the parents here still very concerned.
People here know that it's going to get better from this point on, but it still sounds and feels bad in here. It's not as bad as it was, but when you see the debris being kicked around, the winds could -- could back off quite a bit, but there would still be enough to kick the debris around, and people could still get hurt.
So that's what we're watching out for right now -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So John, from where you are and what you can see, do you agree with the governor? Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour, held a news conference, I guess, within the past 45 minutes -- I'm looking back at my notes -- saying, "There has been no catastrophic damage yet."
Would you agree with that from what you can see, what you have been reporting?
FREED: From what I can see, which is limited to the area around the hotel, based on what we have been doing today and how bad it's been, that it really wasn't safe for me to venture out, I don't see anything catastrophic here. But the nature of the debris -- I mean, this hotel is across from a lumberyard. And the lumberyard is an aluminum building. So you can do that unfortunate math and know that that's just a building full of potential projectiles. So we've been very concerned about that over there.
But the -- what has turned out to be the greater threat are just the debris from our own complex. And some people here are starting to question whether or not the building is structurally sound. But compared to damage that I've seen inflicted on other buildings in other storms, this one is doing not too badly.
It's just that the things that are flying around are doing just that. They're airborne, and they're scaring people. And I'm seeing things kicked around right now.
I'm standing at a window, and a palm tree is -- has been shredded in the last couple of hours right in front of me. It's -- it's tough. It's tough for these people to endure this for as long as it's been. But they see that in a couple of hours from now we should be on the other side of it.
PHILLIPS: John, do you know if all the individuals -- I'm assuming they were evacuated from the casinos out there along the water. The governor had reported that the casinos had some water damage. There was water that had gotten inside those casinos.
Do you -- I mean, that's a huge part of that economy there. Do you have an update on that?
FREED: No. I wish I did. We were hoping a little while ago to have a chance to actually leave the hotel and go down there and try to see the situation at the casinos for ourselves, but the consensus among -- among those of us that are here and have done this before is that it's just not safe enough to go out there.
I mean, the parking lot was just flooded earlier today when at daybreak, when I woke up and peeked out my window, I did a double take when I saw how much water there was out there. I just did not think that where we were in the lay of the land that water was going to collect here. But that's just how strong a storm this has been.
PHILLIPS: All right. Jonathan Freed there in Biloxi, Mississippi. Thank you so much.
As Jonathan was saying, that's the reason why he called in. Winds still 50 to 60 miles an hour. Things may be calming down a little bit in New Orleans, but Biloxi still feeling the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
Highway 90, along the Gulf Coast there, is home to many of Mississippi's glitzy casinos, as we were saying. And Saturday, the Riverboat Casino in the area did close its doors. Well, today it's still closed, and the one-arm bandits muffled by the muscle of Katrina.
Check out this AP photo. A sailboat washed ashore and is blocking part of Highway 90 right now. One Mississippi official described this storm as a devastating hit. He calls Katrina "Camille 2," referring to the devastating hurricane in 1969 which killed 256 people.
We're going to go back to New Orleans now, just outside the Superdome. Our Jeanne Meserve once again coming to us via videophone. As you know, the Superdome is with those thousands of storm victims fled to seek refuge when Hurricane Katrina was stirring up.
Jeanne, still calm, much better than expected, that's for sure. You said that New Orleans breathing a bit of a sigh of relief as things are passing through right now. Not as bad as they thought.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's still raining here. It's still windy. It is still dangerous.
I went down to street level and really got buffeted around quite a bit. So, you know, it's not a day to pack the picnic basket. But it is much better than it was.
I mean, I can tell you that when we got into the full force of the wind earlier, we were holding on to one another, literally for dear life. We really thought we might be blown off the building.
It was really very scary. This is very moderate by comparison, but still very nasty weather. But it's not what they expected here.
Even at its worst, it didn't produce what New Orleans was afraid of. I can tell you that last night we walked through a deserted shopping mall, and in an empty storefront were three policemen using bed rolls. And I went over and talked to them about why they were there.
They had brought their personal watercraft into this parking garage. There are a couple of jet skis and a flat boat. And they had them here just in case the water got so high they could launch them from the parking garage and go out and perhaps help somebody who was stranded by high waters.
Clearly, the water never got that high. We only had about a foot, maybe two feet in this area. And it has receded tremendously since then.
So, you know, again, I'm looking at one little slice of life, just this area that I can survey with my eye near the Superdome. Here there's damage, don't get me wrong. There's damage. There's water in the streets, there is a lot of debris, there are lots of windows out.
It's going to be a mess to clean up, but they were talking about significant deaths in the city. And from what I see here, I don't think it's produced that -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Jeanne Meserve just outside the Superdome there in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.
Thank you so much, Jeanne.
And as you know, New Orleans is surrounded by water on three sides, making it extremely vulnerable to flooding. On the north side of New Orleans sits Lake Pontchartrain. It's the second largest saltwater lake in the country. It's about 40 miles wide east to west, 24 miles from north to south.
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which connects New Orleans to Mandeville, is the longest bridge in the world. And you should have seen that yesterday when everybody was trying to get the heck out of there.
Well, police and emergency workers are preparing to drive through the city to assess the damage and help anyone who needs it. The latest word is hospitals there are open and operating as near to normal as possible. That's despite water coming in on the lower floor of both East Jefferson and Ashner (ph) hospitals.
Among those crowding in Memorial Hospital, cats, dogs belonging to some of the doctors and nurses, even. And that hospital has a long-standing practice of providing refuge to its workers and their pets.
Now, Tulane Medical Center is treating dozens of people right now who made their way to the Superdome last night. Some of them had suffered chest pains or panic attacks, as you can imagine, as that hurricane coming through. Others left home without their medicine or with the wrong medicine.
Our Hurricane Katrina coverage continues right after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Our Hurricane Katrina coverage rolls on. We want to take you now to these brand-new pictures just in from our affiliate WWL from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Once again, this videotape coming to you of downtown Los Angeles (sic). It looks like it's just off Canal Street which, of course, is not far from the French Quarter. You see here a number of the various business buildings and apartment buildings.
I mean, look at what the wind and the rain did, just shattering, it looks like, hundreds of windows. I mean, the good part is these buildings are still standing. But the bad news is, is just the debris and the destruction that the winds and the rain have caused, even turning up the tops of the gutters there, as you can see, in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jacqui Jeras, of course, been working overtime, following Hurricane Katrina all over the United States, or at least certain parts of the United States, Jacqui.
JERAS: Yes.
PHILLIPS: But the good part is so many people saying, hey, it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be.
JERAS: Well, that would be great, but I think we're going to have to kind of wait on that a little bit until we start to see some more of the damage. I'm sure there are plenty of areas we can't even get into at the time. Those pictures that we saw with all of the windows being blown out, that's something to think about. We've been talking over the last few days about the vertical evacuation, as you call it, or vertical refuge. When you go up, if you can't get out of town, to escape the storm surge, or the floodwaters. But one the problems when you go up is that the winds increase and that's why all of those windows are blown out, especially on some of those higher floors. And I think that we'll continue to see some more extensive damage as it continues to push in.
Right now Hattiesburg, Mississippi, getting pounded with the eye wall. The center of circulation is about 20 miles to the south and west and it's going to be in these reds and oranges, where the worst of the winds are going to be. Sustained winds still at 105 miles per hour, so that's still at Category 2 status.
But we're also continuing to get in a number of tornado warnings. These keep on popping up. This outer band has been moving. Here you can see Pensacola. This band is to the north of you, heading into Alabama and pushing to the north at a very fast rate of speed. This was just in Kemper and Nashowa (ph) Counties, and now it's pushing up one right there. We also have some other warnings, one that includes Tuskegee (ph). This is for Macon County, possible tornado. This is a radar-indicated tornado. That one's moving north at about 40 miles per hour.
So these are very fast-moving storms, but they can cause damage. So you need to be taking cover now, getting to the lowest level of your home, away from doors and windows. We can get very significant damage from tornadoes. And we do have that threat across lower parts of Alabama, Mississippi, into the Panhandle of Florida, even into Georgia, almost all the way to the Atlanta area at this time. And that watch will likely be extended as we head through the evening hours for tonight.
Hey, the storm is expected to continue to weaken now. We think we've started to see that little bit of turn up to the north and to the east. We'll wait and hear the official word from the National Hurricane Center with their latest advisory when that turn -- if they officially say that turn has begun. But it appears to me by looking at radar and satellite imagery that it's likely doing that now.
Expected to be moving towards Tennessee by tomorrow morning. Still a hurricane through the rest of the afternoon, even into the early evening hours. Even up to 8:00 tonight, I think, we'll still going to have this maybe down to a category 1. Tropical storm sometime tomorrow, but it will bringing flooding rains across the Tennessee and Ohio River Valleys, heading on up towards the Great Lakes. Four to eight inches of water, of flooding rain is going to be a good possibility in these areas, so we're not just looking at the Gulf Coast and slightly inland that we'll be seeing significant damage from Katrina -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: OK, Jacqui, we'll keep checking in with you. Thank you so much.
And, you know, we've been talking so much about New Orleans, Louisiana. Our correspondents, of course, all throughout the city. John Zarrella, we had talked to him just moments ago. Well, he was able to file this report for us and put some pictures to sound. Here's a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: We are on Common Street in the French quarter. The height of the storm, still not here on top of us yet. But already you can see blown out windows in the building across the street from us. The wind is howling and circulating throughout this -- the corridors of these streets just howling through here. The water is already coming up on the streets, up through the drainage system, all along the street here, off the sides of the buildings. You see the water pouring down.
Back in the distance, you can still barely see down the street. It's just a white sheet of water, a white sheet of rain, pounding in downtown, in the French quarter. You can hear debris flying through the air. You can see debris up in the sky, circling in the wind, just being whipped around by the wind. Pieces of shingle, pieces of roof tiles, flying by.
We do expect that we're going to see a lot more water rising. What we are seeing here is just water coming up from the drainage system, just from the rain. It's not floodwaters from, say, Lake Ponchartrain. This is just strictly the overflow, all of the rain we have had for the last several hours, as Hurricane Katrina continues to beat its path at our door.
John Zarrella, CNN, in the French Quarter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, Katrina's powerful winds turned slate roof tiles into projectiles and blew holes in windows in New Orleans' picturesque French Quarter today. You saw the videotape, as we showed you. The cast iron balconies in the historic district right here, normally crowded with people. Well, it's literally a ghost town. Boisterous Bourbon Street is silent except for the constant howl of punishing winds and rain.
Streets are filling with water that's pouring out of manhole covers, and the area is home, as you know, to one of the Americas' greatest collections of Spanish and colonial and antebellum architecture. Well, today it's eerie and soggy and a ghost town. Levees protect that city, as you know, but if they're breached, the French Quarter could fill up like a sinking canoe. And so far, it hasn't been that bad.
Well, disaster mode. That's the status of the Federal Emergency Management Agency as it gears up to deal with the boggling destruction of Katrina.
CNN's Tom Foreman standing by at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., joins us now live. Maybe we can talk about how FEMA is thinking about responding to all this, Tom. TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kyra, FEMA's going to have a major part of the job of taking all these pieces of the Gulf Coast that have been blown all around and figuring out where they are and putting them all back together.
Patrick Rhode from FEMA is here to talk to us for a moment. Tell us where you stand right now. I know earlier today your teams were in place, but couldn't move because of the danger. Where do they stand now?
PATRICK RHODE, DEP. DIR. OF FEMA: That's correct, that's correct. We're still holding them right now until the storm completely passes. It's very important that we got all these teams in place and we have all the commodities in place. Our urban search and rescue teams, our disaster medical assistance teams. All of our commodities, our meals ready to eat, of course, the traditional ice and water and tarps and cots.
FOREMAN: You got those as close to the scene as you could.
RHODE: We got those as close we possibly could, to where we believe that the most impacted areas are going to be. They are ready to mobilize as soon as the storm lifts and soon as we all believe that it is absolutely safe for them to move.
FOREMAN: You think some of that could happen around nightfall tonight, if you're lucky?
RHODE: We're very optimistic that perhaps it could begin happening this evening. Of course, you know, you're finding darkness and you're also fighting debris and we don't really know exactly what some of the thoroughfares are going look like that we're going to utilize. So it is something that is very much a challenge, but we're very hopeful we'll be able to move shortly.
FOREMAN: Obviously, you take these things very seriously. You've been collecting a lot of information. General indications from a lot of people seem to be there's a lot of work out there, a lot of damage, not as bad as some people feared 24 hours ago.
RHODE: I don't know if we're quite ready to say that just yet. I believe that I've heard Max Mayfield (ph) say the difference between a cat 5 and a cat 4 is the difference between perhaps a freight train and a train, if you will. And I believe that we've got to really take a hard look at some of the hardest impacted areas and we're really not going to have a good opportunity to do that until we have the chance to really complete our preliminary damage assessments, together with our state partners, hear from all of our liaisons in the field and also to coordinate with the entire federal family and see specifically where that damage is and the impact of people that live there.
FOREMAN: From what you heard so far, what are some hot spots you know about?
RHODE: It sounds as if the Mississippi area and that Mississippi Gulf Coast is perhaps impacted a little bit more than we had originally thought. And we're working that issue right now.
FOREMAN: So Gulfport pass Christiane (ph), that area?
RHODE: That's what it sounds...
FOREMAN: Maybe up to Slidell in Louisiana?
RHODE: That's exactly right. And I think it's important right now -- that's what we think. And until we actually have the opportunity to get on the ground, we're relying upon our partners in the field right now, who of course are hampered by the storm, until they themselves can get down and take a better look at the situation.
FOREMAN: Your first steps, then, are just to stabilize, correct? To make sure people search and rescue.
RHODE: That is exactly right. It's the life-sustaining issues that we try to speak to first. We try to get in there with our response phase, which speaks to our urban search and rescue, to try to make sure that we can find the people, wherever they perhaps may be. And we augment that together with the state's ability to do their own search and rescue. We augment that, we also take a look at the domestic medical assistance teams that go in -- look very much MASH units -- if, in fact, we need to apply some of that kind of assistance.
FOREMAN: Last question about all of this. How much is this complicated by the fact that this is such a big storm and you've got to be looking at Tennessee and Virginia and Ohio?
RHODE: Not in time. Fortunately or unfortunately, as perhaps you want to look at it, we had this experience last year, as well, too. As you'll recall, the four hurricanes went up through not just Florida, but went up through a lot of the Eastern seaboard, if you will. That is something that we practice all the time. We work with all of our partners in the field. It is a concern for us, because we realize that we're looking at resources in each one of those states. But it's the partnerships that we have with each one of those states that make us believe that this effort is going to be successful.
FOREMAN: Patrick Rhode from FEMA, thank you for stopping by.
RHODE: Thank you.
FOREMAN: We'll be seeing a lot more of you.
Kyra, it is safe to say that truly because of modern communications and because of all this preparation, the federal government, in all likelihood, is more prepared now for this disaster than they have maybe been for disasters throughout history. In the coming weeks, we'll see if the proof is in the pudding, how quickly that relief gets to exactly where it's needed and how the results play out -- Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Tom, you bring up a good point. You know, if you look at FEMA and how the Department of Homeland Security is set up and the coordination, even all the way in Colorado Springs with the U.S. Northern Command, there are so many agencies now working together for consequence management.
FOREMAN: Yes, and these were brought together, interestingly enough, in large part by hurricanes in the 1960s, Betsy and Camille among them. Those emphasized the problem they had when many different federal agencies handled different parts of disasters. Jimmy Carter brought them all together and said we need a centralized form. FEMA was the result of all of this, and to this day, it coordinates to make sure local agencies, state agencies, federal agencies, all come together as best they can in circumstances which are trying at best. And by golly, the Gulf Coast is going to find out about that in coming weeks and see how well it works or sometimes doesn't, in the worst case.
PHILLIPS: No doubt. Tom Foreman there in Washington, D.C., outside of FEMA. Thank you so much.
And new pictures of the destruction coming in to us right now. These AP photos are actually from New Orleans. Cars there covered in bricks falling from the destroyed buildings. Not sure which area of New Orleans this is. But it's a prime example of these older buildings, and when this type of flooding and winds come through, well, this is the destruction, this is what you see. That's how powerful those winds were.
Another view. Notice that the lights are still on in that truck. That's pretty unbelievable. Hopefully no one is inside. And the road most people used to evacuate, the I-10, the sign for it shows how high those floodwaters are right now.
And an office building with several windows blown out. Check this out. We actually saw the live pictures. We saw this building on videotape where the windows were blown out. You can see the office furniture is still sitting there. Unbelievable.
And a car in downtown New Orleans almost totally submerged. We've been seeing a lot of that as people had to leave their cars and flee and the stars and stripes taking a beating by Katrina's winds but still flying, of course, over the city of New Orleans. Our live coverage of Hurricane Katrina continues after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: High winds, high water and high anxiety as Hurricane Katrina slams ashore. Welcome back to our continuing live coverage. And we want to, again welcome our international viewers.
Now, a Category 2 storm, Katrina was a 4 late this morning, pounding Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, the waters so high in Gulfport that boats are literally floating up in the streets. The fierce winds blew out windows, ripped off roofs and toppled power lines from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama and the big easy was spared a direct hit but still suffered extensive damage.
You're seeing the videotape right now. Water topped the levees there as our correspondent John Zarrella reported. It is now pouring out of the manholes. Buildings lost their brick sidings as well. And the Superdome lost part of its roof.
About 10,000 people have taken refuge there and emergency crews are moving into the area, and President Bush has pledged federal help once that storm passes.
PHILLIPS: Well, when a hurricane turns to shore most of us know to fear the intense wind and storm surge associate with it, but do you stop to consider inland flooding? Well, you should and here's why.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the U.S. inland floods have accounted for 59 percent of tropical storm deaths over the past 30 years. That means since the 1970s more people have died from inland flooding than all other storm effects combined including surf, surge, wind and tornadoes. One out of every four storm deaths occur to people who drown in their cars or attempting to abandon them.
And children are especially vulnerable. Seventy-eight percent of those killed by storms drowned in fresh water floods. This type of flooding can occur hundreds of miles from landfall. And keep in mind rainfall amounts can actually be greater from weaker tropical storms that move slowly. Once the danger from gusting winds and storm surge passes, the destruction from flooding even in areas not hit by the eye of the storm remains.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And here's some pictures from downtown New Orleans that came in just a short time ago. Just listen to the wind for a minute.
Thanks to our affiliate WFOR there in New Orleans. Brian Andrews doing some great reporting along with his photographer, just giving you a sense of what it was like within the past couple of hours.
Now some more Associated Press photos coming in to us. Take a look at these. This one from Gulfport, Mississippi. It's a damaged business district there including what looks like a Dairy Queen that was wiped out. You can see the cars trying to make it through. There you go. There's the business shot right there.
And this is another area in Gulfport -- actually, this is in Gulf Shores, Alabama, actually, an area that usually gets wiped out when those hurricanes come through. It's unbelievable what people there sustain and all the rebuilding that has taken place from the last time.
Take a look at this. This copy is not matching up with the photos.
So I'm going to kind of wing it here.
I don't know where this photo but we'll keep moving along. What about the next one? There we go. That looks like a homeowner in the floodwaters there in his front porch, I'm being told possibly, in Fair Hope, Alabama, on Mobile Bay. You can actually see behind him.
We're going to take a quick break. More hurricane coverage right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: You know, we've been talking so much just about the high winds and the high water and all the high anxiety from Hurricane Katrina. Well, take a look at this. This is captured on videotape. Our affiliate, WWL out of New Orleans, shooting videotape trying to do reports.
I'm not sure who this is: If it's a reporter, a bystander or a photographer actually saw this driver coming through the floodwaters there in New Orleans and actually it looks like they do have -- some letters on the front of that rain jacket there. I'll try and figure out who that is. What station they're from. Possibly WWL.
Anyway, this driver was coming through this area, obviously not realizing how high the water was; how fast that water was moving. So, that employee from WWL appears running to try and rescue that driver out of that car. I understand we've got sound from that driver that just came in seconds ago. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was driving I-10 westbound trying to get to Kenner, to the Williams Boulevard exit and I didn't see the water. It just blends in with the gray of the road and I just drove right into it. So, you know -- but it was my fault. It was a stupid thing to do and I did it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Wow. He may think it's a stupid thing to do, but like he said he didn't realize how fast that water was moving; how high it was. He said he was heading on I-10 westbound toward Kenner, Kenner, Louisiana.
Kenner is actually a suburb outside of the city there. And you can see -- I believe it's a WWL employee, possibly, coming to rescue that driver that was coming through an area of New Orleans, Louisiana. Pretty amazing pictures.
Well, the pictures continue. The interviews continue and the coverage continues of Hurricane Katrina as we have watched it within the past 24 hours plus. Not only from here but also from THE SITUATION ROOM. Our Wolf Blitzer joining us live now to tell us what's coming up. Wolf, you're continuing the special coverage?
WOLF BLITZER, HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": We will for three hours, Kyra. At the top of the hour, extensive live coverage of what has happened along the Gulf Coast. It's been hammered by Katrina as all of our viewers know. Jackson, Mississippi, specifically, about to bear the brunt. Coming up, we'll speak with the mayor of Jackson. We'll also speak with the mayor of New Orleans. We'll bring you all these events live as they unfold. We're also getting, unfortunately, some horrible video from New Orleans and other places. We'll show it to our viewers as we get it. Kyra, all that coming up at the top of the hour here in "THE SITUATION ROOM."
PHILLIPS: All right. Wolf, thank you so much.
We'll we're going to continue our coverage here as we get to the top of the hour. Wolf, as you know, takes over at 3:00 Eastern. We want to thank our international viewers for tuning in, as well as our viewers here in the United States.
We're going to take a quick break and have more coverage after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: From Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama, we've been covering Hurricane Katrina for the past almost 48 hours. These pictures coming in to us now via WBRZ. That's one of our affiliates in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Let's take a listen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because people cannot get to downtown New Orleans from that way with that much water there and it seems as though last time we had problems there, it took a while before that water receded.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wonder how high that water is there. That is incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you can tell it's almost to the top of the light.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at the streetlights dangling there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, that is incredible. Have we gotten any sort of update at all, any kind of hard numbers on injuries at this point?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We -- earlier the governor was on and I think some of the reporters were pressing her for information on that and she seemed to not have any direct information. I think there was one FEMA volunteer who was unfortunately killed in a automobile accident on his or her way into the state. That's the only one sure death that I'm aware of.
I think the reporters there were trying to find out more information. I know George Ryan was asking her about that. That's all. What we're hoping is that known of -- that no lives would be lost as a result of this storm and that's why there were -- that was a mandatory evacuation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mayor Nagin called St. Bernard and some of those other perishes, asking those people to get out for fear that this could be such a powerful storm that many lives would be lost.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, I know just about maybe two hours ago...
PHILLIPS: Once again, you were listening to the anchors there and the reporters from Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- just giving you kind of a feeling on how we've all bee covering Hurricane Katrina from Mississippi to Louisiana to Alabama.
Now, Wolf Blitzer is going to take over with a special three-hour edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. He's got even more amazing pictures and interviews -- Wolf?
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