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Hurricane Evacuees & USPS; Incoming Foreign Aid; Emptying New Orleans

Aired September 07, 2005 - 14:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Disconnected. Thousands of evacuees, hundreds of miles from home, how are they paying their bills and getting their mail? The U.S. postmaster general joins me live this hour.
And aid to America. Which countries are offering and actually sending help to the United States? From the CNN center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.

Leaving New Orleans. Mission critical for anybody who doesn't have to be there, and still apparently a top priority for thousands of civilians. That makes it a top priority for New Orleans police, who say they won't carry out a forced evacuation order until all the willing evacuees are rescued.

Repairs in the worst of the levee breaches have allowed a few of New Orleans' pumping stations to make real progress getting flood water back into Lake Pontchartrain. And at the same time, new holes are being knocked into levees east of downtown on purpose to drain water into the bayou.

Evacuees in Houston and far beyond are abuzz with the news that FEMA will give out debit cards worth $2,000 to all displaced adults. No small change, but the White House wants another $50 billion, $51.8 billion, to be precise, to cover that and other short-term projects. A spokesperson says that $10.5 billion that Congress OKed last week is being spent faster than expected.

Before we move on in New Orleans, we will talk more about that, we want to take you to live pictures right now as the motorcade carrying the casket of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist is making its way to St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., right now.

We brought you amazing pictures from inside the U.S. Supreme Court where his flag-draped coffin was lying in repose at the Supreme Court where, as you know, he presided for nearly two decades. Quite a beautiful visual as all the Supreme Court justices surrounded his coffin and said a final prayer as he began this final journey.

Now his hearse getting closer and pulling up to the front of St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, where our Joe Johns is. And we've been talking to him outside the church within the past hour.

And, Joe, tell me, what happens from here. The services, of course, conducted by a number of reverends, including Reverend Jan Lookingbill from Emmanuel Lutheran Church, which Rehnquist attended when he lived in Bethesda, Maryland, right?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's correct. We also expect some participation obviously from Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of the Washington diocese. This is a Catholic church, the Cathedral of St. Matthew, but the chief justice was Lutheran.

And there are a number of factors that went into, I think, deciding on this church. Number one, the size, there's also an incredible history here. As well, it is the church where the annual Red Mass is held. This is a mass that is essentially organized by the John Carroll Society, a society of Catholic lawyers to, in essence, bless the legal profession right around the start of the Supreme Court term.

Now, there you see some folks walking up the stairs. So there's a lot of history in the church. The legal profession has some ties to it as well. And that's why we're having it here. And Theodore McCarrick, again, is Catholic, but he will also participate because, you know, this is his home church essentially, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And how private is this ceremony going to be? Is this just family and friends, Joe?

JOHNS: It's going to be quite private in the sense that no cameras are allowed. But there are a lot of family, friends, high government officials, members of Congress, the president, of course, himself speaking, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor speaking, as well. There, you may see a camera shot, if you can, of -- there are the justices walking in there up at the top of the stairs.

PHILLIPS: We see them all lined up right now.

JOHNS: With the casket, down here with the casket, as well, getting ready to take the casket out of the hearse and a number of pallbearers, among them some clerks. I see, I believe, Dean Colson there at the back. If that is Dean Colson, I can tell you a little about him. He, in fact, was -- oh, I see the justices are on the side, I'm sorry, Kyra.

Again, among the pallbearers here, Dean Colson was a clerk with Justice Rehnquist at the time John Roberts was also a clerk. I was able to break bread with him just last week. He's one of -- now a big-time lawyer in the Miami area.

But back in those days, really tells some incredible stories, not just about the chief justice, but also about the court. So many stories, one sticks out in my mind, and I hope it's not inappropriate, is the closeness of the clerks and how they would play together, they would work together, they would play basketball together in a court, a basketball court just above the Supreme Court, and they would call that basketball court the highest court in the land.

Dean Colson apparently played, as well, with John Roberts. And, you know, they share a lot of stories. So here you see now the casket coming out, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: And, you know, you mentioned the...

JOHNS: The justices walking in.

PHILLIPS: Right, they're walking in. And I understand the president of the United States, along with the vice president, they are already inside the church there, Joe. And you mentioned that Sandra Day O'Connor will be giving the eulogy. Just a tremendous relationship between those two, one that stems all the way back to Stanford.

They were extremely close at one time, maintaining an incredible friendship for so many years, and it's pretty amazing to think they end up at the Supreme Court together.

JOHNS: Yes, it is pretty remarkable. And we've heard some stories, although I certainly haven't been able to confirm, that she wanted to retire and was concerned about the timing, because she didn't want that timing to step on Justice Rehnquist. And according to the story that's told, she decided to go ahead and retire because it became pretty clear to her that the chief wasn't going to retire unless he had to.

And she did, and even in the midst of all the speculation that the chief was going to retire early in the summer, she went first. And as it turns out, the chief justice passes away now before the start of the term in October.

PHILLIPS: You know, you bring up an interesting point. They were such good friends, and they talked so much. You tend to wonder if he might have said, you know, "I probably should retire considering my health, but you know what? You know, you have so much on your mind, you want to retire, you have a husband who is dealing with Alzheimer's." It wouldn't even surprise me if, out of friendship, they had this discussion about how they were going to do that.

JOHNS: Yes, well, I have to tell you, too. He was a very strong man and even when he returned to the court, though he was sick, though he wasn't doing very well, you could tell that his mind was still very sharp.

PHILLIPS: Sure.

JOHNS: And I think it's true that the chief justice -- he had made the Supreme Court his life. He had been there, what, about 33 years, 19 the chief, and his wife had passed away. The court was his life. He had nowhere to go, and I often wondered when we were hearing all the speculation about him, what else was he to do if he were to leave?

So in that way, it's not that shocking that the chief stayed on. I think there was a count -- you know, he's the 16th chief justice. And previous to him, I think eight of the chief justices had retired, and he's the eighth died in office, so it was pretty much split.

PHILLIPS: Our Joe Johns there in front of St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington. Joe, thank you so much. Now, I'm sure within just a few moments, the services will be conducted for Chief William Rehnquist there inside St. Matthew's cathedral.

Straight ahead, courageous doctors stayed in New Orleans to help their patients. And you may remember seeing the doctors at Charity Hospital from our earlier coverage. Well, later, one of the doctors joins me to talk about his new mission to go back in and help out.

And offers to help out the United States from Cuba to Kuwait. We'll tell you who's pitching in and what they're giving. Details on that straight ahead.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I know. They're alive.

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PHILLIPS: And one family's mission to rescue their beloved pets. We'll have that for you, too.

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PHILLIPS: We just got this videotape in from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This actually was yesterday in New Orleans, and you can see them there in the shotgun apartments. These are a part of the evacuations. They're going, you know, house to house searching for people, number one.

Actually, I shouldn't say that they're involved with the evacuations, because the military has made it clear they would not be involved in the evacuations. It would just be a law enforcement issue. So as far as I know right, now these border patrol agents that are going into these homes are actually looking for people and trying to draw people out of their homes.

But, in addition to Customs and Border Patrol agents going in, looking for people house to house in these neighborhoods, at the same time, the New Orleans police department also have been ordered by the mayor to forcibly go in and get anybody that is still in their homes and take them out and tell them they've got to leave.

We've been talking about the health threats that exist, and that it's just too dangerous to be staying in the New Orleans area at this time. So you have now U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents going in via the boats here, looking for people house to house, bringing them out.

You've got military that are still dealing with all the humanitarian efforts and keeping the peace. And then you have law enforcement now that have been told to go in by orders of the mayor to make sure that everybody is told they must evacuate. And if they say no, law enforcement officers will take them out of there.

Now, we've also been talking about how the hurricane has disrupted the very basics of society and take, for example, the mail. I mean, with thousands of people displaced and delivery impossible in so many of the areas, the U.S. Postal Service is facing a huge challenge right now.

But it is taking action, and it says its three priorities are now to reconnect, respond, and re-establish. Joining us now to explain the process is John Potter, he is the U.S. postmaster general.

Sir, good to see you.

JOHN POTTER, POSTMASTER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: Good afternoon, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I guess before we even talk about some specifics, I want to know, have you heard from your employees in these devastated areas, and are you concerned about some of your employees, if they're alive and if they're doing well?

POTTER: Well, we've heard from many of our employees and we're very anxious to hear from them all. I thank you for the opportunity to get on this broadcast. We know many of them have moved out of the area and are in temporary locations. We ask them to contact us on 1- 800-ASK-USPS or come to the local post office. We're very anxious to hear from them. We want to make sure they get their money, get their checks, as well as we want to make sure that we do everything we can to help them in their time of need. So thank you for that.

PHILLIPS: Oh, it's our pleasure. I mean, I have to tell you, we were talking in our morning meeting this morning, and one of the questions that came up when we started to think about everything that's going on for the people in these areas, what about the mail? What about getting bills and getting everything that you depend on to just keep functioning?

Let me ask you about that. I mean, for folks that need to pay their credit card bills or other types of bills that they owe, what are you going to do to let people know, "Hey, this is a hurricane victim. They're not going to get their mail probably for months"?

POTTER: Well, we've already notified all of the major mailers throughout the country which zip codes were able to affect delivery to. As a matter of fact, if you go to our web site, we have a hot map...

PHILLIPS: We've got it up right now. So go ahead and describe it, John.

POTTER: ... that shows exactly where we're able to deliver mail. Some of the heat map that you see has some yellow zones, and those zones primarily our problem is, we haven't been able to establish our retail operations. But we're doing the best we can to do that. And the red zones are areas where we cannot get into to effect delivery.

What we're asking everybody to do is, as they temporarily relocate, let us know where you are. The mail will move to you if you simply let us know where you are. We're asking you to get online, www.usps.com, we're asking you to call 1-800-ASK-USPS, or come to any post office and fill out a change of address order so we can have the mail follow you.

PHILLIPS: And a lot of people have already done that, right?

POTTER: Oh, we have many thousands who have done that, and we're moving the mail to them as quickly as possible. We do have some people who're talking about the fact that, "I'm only temporarily moving somewhere." So as an example, in the Houston Astrodome, we've set up a post office. And we're giving those people temporary addresses.

We recognize that they may be there only a week or two, but we want the mail to move to them. And if they move again, it will follow them. So it's very important that they get that information to us. We'll share that with those people who send them bills. And, again, everyone will become informed about where they are.

PHILLIPS: So basically, every company in the United States needs to know that if you are billing somebody in Louisiana and you're not getting a check, be sensitive to that right now because a lot of people are not getting the mail. And we actually brought that up, maybe we can bring it up again.

The Houston Astrodome, the zip code is going to be 77230, so if somebody wants to get in touch with somebody there at the Astrodome, they'd just put the name and then "Houston Astrodome" and then that zip code, is that right?

POTTER: Well, you can do that for now, but in addition to that, we're giving each person in the Houston Astrodome a special post office box number, and we're going to direct it to them. We have technology that will allow us to move mail anywhere that people are in the country. We have a postal automation redirection system.

So if you are mailing to somebody in New Orleans here in Washington, D.C., and we had a change of address order that told us that they were in California, we would actually code the mail here in Washington, D.C., put a label on it for the address in California and it will bypass the Gulf area.

So we're very anxious for people to give us that information so that they can begin receiving their mail and have some normalcy back in their lives.

PHILLIPS: And John, real quickly. What about Social Security checks?

POTTER: Well, Social Security checks, we set up special stations throughout the Gulf region, and we gave out thousands of checks. People could come and receive their checks. In addition to that, if you give us that forwarding information, we're going to share that with the Social Security administration.

Locally, we put out a lot of PSA announcements, but we came to realize that people are all over America and we really need that information about where they are. We're working closely with the Social Security Administration to get those people their checks but, again, no one can do anything unless we know where you are. So please, please, let us know where you are. 1-800-ASK-USPS, usps.com, or go into any post office and fill out a change of address notice.

PHILLIPS: John Potter, U.S. postmaster general. Sir, thank you very much. Great information.

POTTER: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: My pleasure.

Well, dozens of countries worldwide are offering food, money and supplies for the hurricane victims. Some of the aid already is being put to use. CNN's Zain Verjee takes a look at who's offering what.

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ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Emergency aid from all corners of the world, and from all sides of the political spectrum. From Germany, a loaded plane leaves for the U.S., parts of more than 40 tons of relief supplies.

WILLIAM TIMKEN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY: Victims are, however, already consuming the food that was flown in by the Bundeswehr on the weekend.

VERJEE: In all, more than 90 countries and international organizations are offering aid, more than 20 from Europe, providing money and meals, tents and blankets. But after crossing the Atlantic, some of the aid's getting caught in snags on U.S. soil.

STAVROS DIMAS, E.U. ENVIRONMENT COMMISSION: I think there is some logistics problems in our counterparts in the United States.

VERJEE: The Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas is the hub for international shipments. This plane came in from Britain, loaded with food rations. In all, there'll be more than half a million rations. The U.K. is also pledging to help with search and rescue missions, water management, and port handling.

America's northern neighbor, Canada, is sending three naval vessels and one Coast Guard ship to help New Orleans. Other offers of help, New Zealand is pledging $1.4 million. Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries that often finds itself a victim to floods, $1 million. Afghanistan, $100,000. From Latin America, some unlikely offers, Honduras says it'll send flood and sanitation experts. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of President George W. Bush, is offering $5 million in cash and a million barrels of gas.

Perhaps the unlikeliest offer of all, Cuban President Fidel Castro told the local press he'd send more than a thousand Cuban doctors, but the U.S. says they'll believe him when he makes a formal offer, something they say has not yet happened.

Meanwhile, Washington says so many aid offers means that it has to take the time to match the needs of the people on the ground with all the donations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, of course, we're sitting talking about the piece. I'm listening to the piece and I'm asking Zain, "Well, what about this? What about that?" So you know what? Let's just tell people what we were talking about.

I said to you what about -- you know, I've been reading about countries that have been wanting to give things, but they haven't been able to do it. And you're saying, well, it just comes down to logistics.

VERJEE: Exactly. I mean, there's so much aid that's been offered, you know. Countries like India, Sweden, South Korea have got planeloads on the tarmac waiting to go. Countries like Kuwait have given $400 million, Qatar, $100 million in cash, Korea, $30 million in cash, Saudi Arabia, more than $5 million as well.

But, you know, it does come down to logistics. The U.S. is saying, "Look, it's really generous we have all these offers of help, but what we've got to do on our end is to sort out coordination issues. And we've got to match who needs what where exactly before we begin accepting all this aid."

I was talking to an official from Canada and I said, "Well, what kind of issues have you had?" And they said, "Well, actually we haven't had as many difficult issues because, you know, we're close, one." And, number two, he said that the institutions are quite integrated like the armed forces and, you know, those sorts of issues. They can work quite closely together. So for most countries, I think, they're just waiting for the green light.

PHILLIPS: Well, you know, look at all the Arab countries on that one graphic, if we can bring it up again. I mean, a lot of people have been saying, "Look, everything that we do overseas, where's the money coming from with regard to those countries?" Well, here it is. I mean, Saudi Arabia, $5.25 million in cash and all of the other countries.

VERJEE: Right. Well, I mean, there really is a very strong feeling, particularly from all the emails that we've received from our international audience. Well, they say, "You know what? The U.S. always helps us in a time of crisis and utter disaster. So you know what, it's our turn to help the U.S."

There's an enormous amount of sympathy, you know, as the rest of the world watches what unfolds and they are digging deep in their pockets. And they are a little stunned, too, the U.S. has been fairly unprepared and vulnerable in this situation.

PHILLIPS: Zain Verjee, thank you so much.

VERJEE: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, straight ahead, also the economic impact ahead on LIVE FROM... on how Hurricane Katrina is affecting America's jobs. We'll talk about that straight ahead.

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SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange with new post-Katrina data on the economy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the hurricane will leave over 400,000 people without jobs. The nonpartisan budget arm of Congress also says it could also shave as much as 1 percent off the nation's economic growth, much of the loss coming from the disruption to oil production in the Gulf.

The CBO did say that refineries and pipelines are coming back online faster than expected, and that should help avert a severe energy shortage. The energy department also said today that U.S. energy markets should recover from Hurricane Katrina by the end of the year. It also offered some good news for drivers, saying improvements in the petroleum supplies should send prices at the bumps down nearly 50 cents from current levels.

Crude prices, by the way, are down sharply for the third straight session, trading down $1.86 at just over $64 a barrel. Turning now to the markets, well, stocks are up modestly. Remember, they had a big gain yesterday. Triple-digit gains for the DOW. Third best of the year, in fact. The Dow right now up 16 points, NASDAQ up 1 point. And that's the latest from Wall Street. More LIVE FROM... right after this.

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