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Galveston Officials Hunker Down as Residents Leave; Fleeing Rita's Danger Only to Sit for Hours On Gridlocked Interstates; Rita Drops Back to Cat 4, Update from Hurricane Center; Chaos at Crowded Airport as Residents

Aired September 22, 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, LIVE FROM: A Texas-sized traffic jam. Live pictures from Houston. This is what an evacuation looks like when dealing with 4 million people. Some residents have given up on getting out. We'll talk with one of them this hour.
Just where will the storm hit? How strong will it be? We are tracking it for by the second. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. This hour of CNN'S LIVE FROM starts right now.

PHILLIPS: Four out of five. If there's any potential bright spot in the garish vortex of Hurricane Rita, it's a gradual weakening since early this morning when Rita became the third-most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record.

But what's a few milibars when talking about wind speeds of 155 mile an hour, equivalent to a medium tornado? Rita's now a Category 4, with a bead on the north-east Texas, southwest Louisiana coast line.

"Contra flow" is the word of the day in greater Houston. Where greater gridlock resulted form attempts to evacuate the fourth largest metro area in America. For now, there's no such thing as southbound lane on I-45. All lanes lead to the town of Buffalo 100 miles north.

In Galveston, 50 miles to the southeast, few people want to see firsthand how a 17 foot sea wall handles a storm surge estimated at 15 to 50 feet. This is a model of what Cat 4 hurricane Carla did in 1961 with a peak surge of 22 feet, 16 inches of rain. Almost all of Galveston's 58,000 residents have heeded the mayor's orders to get out of there.

The mayor's not budging, by the way. She and other top officials are hunkered down in a hotel on the former sight of Ft. Crocket. Higher even than the sea wall with outer walls eight-feet thick. Galveston is taking heart in Rita's apparent curve to the east. No one's celebrating yet. Isn't that right, David Mattingly?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kyra.

Public officials here, speaking a short time ago at the most recent briefing, put out an extraordinary figure. They estimate that 90 percent, nine out of every 10 people on this island have evacuated. That's remarkable no what community you might go to. Nine out of 10 people heeding the warnings and going to the mainland, sitting in that traffic. The governor earlier praised everybody who made that decision. Saying you might be sitting in traffic. But he's saying you need to be cautious and you need to be patting yourself on the back a little bit because you made the right decision.

Here in Galveston, they are saying that their efforts to get the at-risk people, as they described, the sick, the elderly, peep who do not have a ride out. That has been going very well; 3200 people so far have taken them up on their offer to take public transit out of here.

Again, that is a service that may be ending soon. One public official said they might be down to just their last bus because the way the traffic is, they don't want to load up a bus and send them out to have them sitting in traffic when the hurricane hits. They believe that in the next few hours they'll fill up one more bus, send them off into traffic and give them time to get out of here.

After that, it will be time for hunkering down. And for anyone with their own means of transportation to get out as best they can. One public official in particular said no matter how you look at this, this city is going to take a tremendous hit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVEN LABLANC, GALVESTON CITY MANAGER: Galveston is going to suffer. And we are going to need to get it back in order as quickly as possible. I would say that we probably have 90 percent off our residents have left the island. It feels like a ghost town to me. And that's a good thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: The mayor of the town has asked for 1500 National Guardsmen to be standing by along with two search and rescue teams to come in here immediately after the hurricane. That gives you some idea of the manpower they think they are going to be needing for this barrier island. And all the damage they are anticipating when the storm goes through -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Now, David, we mentioned that the mayor and other officials are hunkered down in this hotel, this former sight of Ft. Crocket. We were wondering, we had heard that possibly there's an old bunker from the war down there. Is that right? Or is that just hearsay?

MATTINGLY: City officials told me yesterday that was the sight of an artillery bunker as well, where that fort was. So yes, that's what they built this hotel on top of. And they said yesterday the man who designed and engineered that hotel plans to stay in it as well as a show of support that he believes that building can withstand anything that is thrown at it, from this storm.

PHILLIPS: So are they actually down in that bunker, David?

MATTINGLY: I think they built on top of the bunker, Kyra. Going low during this hurricane on an already-low island would not be a very smart thing to do. They believe it is on a sturdy foundation and plenty of room to go up. And I emphasize up away from whatever flooding there might be.

PHILLIPS: Especially when you are talking about 50 feet of water possibly coming through there. David Mattingly, thank you so much.

Once the destination of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, the city of Houston is itself under evacuation today. Interstate 45 is now a one-way highway leading out of town. Jeff Rosen, of CNN affiliate WABC, is watching the exodus.

Tell us what you see, Jeff.

JEFF ROSEN, REPORTER, WABC: In the words of one driver, I have never seen traffic like this in my entire life.

I've seen a lot of traffic. I'm from New York. I've never seen anything like this either. This, let me show you, is I-45 in Houston going northbound, or as they like to say now, inland. Because inland is all that matters when a Category 4 or 5 storm is headed your way.

You can see, it's absolute gridlock traffic. It has been like this since yesterday afternoon. We thought maybe it would die out overnight, it didn't. We thought, OK, well, maybe it will die out this afternoon. It hasn't.

I mean, you can see, there are cars that have been sitting in the same exact spot. The same spot for hours. We spoke with one man earlier who was on the road for 11 hours. An man who was a diabetic on the road for nine hours.

Another problem we're having is people are running out of gas because gas, as you know, here in Texas now, is in short supply. There's been a huge run on fuel. People are running out of gas. Cars on the side of the road just breaking. And blocks another lane of traffic and police and emergency vehicles can't come through to get them. It is a vicious cycle here on the roads.

That is becoming the main story today, this massive evacuation. We've been asking people to come out of their cars and talk to us for a minute. They don't mind normally because you are not going anywhere anyway.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nowhere at all.

ROSEN: What is it like inside the car? It is so hot, out here in Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's burning up. And it just keeps getting hotter. We left at 4:00 this morning. Been on the road for nine hours. Only made it 10 miles. It just keeps getting hotter and hotter as the sun gets higher.

ROSEN: Why don't you put on the AC?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are trying to conserve our gas. Trying to make it to Dallas. Not sure how far we will be able to make it on what we've got.

ROSEN: Why do you leave? I guess it's not so late, because the storm is not hitting until tomorrow. But why did you wait until the second wave to leave?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm actually from Dallas. I was in Houston on business. And we were trying get our work done as fast as we could. Next thing we know, we weren't able to get any flights out of the town.

ROSEN: Here you are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically stealing our rental car, driving up to Dallas. This is the first we were able to get out of town.

ROSEN: Best of luck to you. Those cars are just sitting there.

Actually, I want to show you something else. If you can come with me. You can see the kids have the bottled water. That's what's so important now. The children inside the car. Hey, guys. I hope you are holding up OK. They looked hot because you can't run AC as the gentlemen mentioned, in these cars. Because that really burns down your fuel. How are you handling them? How you handle all of this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are just trying keep calm and keep them calm. Overall we are doing pretty well.

ROSEN: Are people getting angry out there, because I know I'd be getting testy?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, people are great. I had to get over from the middle lane, and people let me over. You just have to be patient and calm.

ROSEN: What happens when you run out of gas? I don't know how full your tank is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we are pretty good right now. We are about three-quarters full. We are going to go down the road a bit and chance it, I guess, right now.

ROSEN: Why did you decide to leave? Why evacuate?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we live in Belair (ph) and they actually suggested a voluntary evacuation. And with the news yesterday, I know it's different today, we thought we'd better go up to Dallas.

ROSEN: OK, thank you so very much. Before we leave you, I actually want to come back over here to bring you back to this picture that is so unbelievable. Because it will be like this and we will be showing you these pictures, I'm sure for quite a bit of time.

And so, from Houston, where I-45 looks more like a parking lot, I'm Jeff Rose, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Jeff Rosen of WABC. Thanks, Jeff.

Despite predictions that the center of Hurricane Rita will make landfall farther north, mandatory evacuations are continuing in the Corpus Christi, Texas area. About 15,000 people living on Padre and Mustang Islands are supposed to be out within the hour. People living in other parts of the Corpus Christi area have until this evening to leave.

Our Meteorologist Jacqui Jeras tracking Rita at the CNN Weather Center. She joins us with the latest on where the storm is and where its headed -- Jacqui?

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra. The storm has weakened a little bit. That's some good news. We'll take any kind of weakening we can get. Not that much of a difference in the damage that a 4 or a 5 could do. Winds down to 150 miles per hour. We could see that spike back up later on today.

The center of the storm about 430 miles away from Galveston, Texas now. The forecast track remaining the same. You can see that cone of uncertainty still looking west of Galveston to somewhere over into the Morgan City area.

Most likely is going to be somewhere near the Texas, Louisiana state line. Give it a couple of miles, there are still a couple of days here before we are going to be seeing landfall. As we've been seeing that storm take a little bit of a wobble on up to the north. And that's why we've seen some shifts.

Hurricane warnings in effect from Port O'Connor extending over to Morgan City. Also, by the way, there are tropical storm watches in effect extending over towards the Pearl River. And that does include Lake Ponchartrain and includes New Orleans. That means the tropical storm conditions are possible, 36 hours from now.

And I'm going to start with that as my first question to Ed Rappaport from the National Hurricane Center. Is this looking more vulnerable now for New Orleans?

ED RAPPAPORT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: A bit more in that the track has edged just a little to the right. But the center of the hurricane is going to be passing due south. Or a beam of New Orleans in the next 12 hours, and about 300 miles to the south.

The problem is that tropical storm force winds extend out a little more than 200 miles from the center. And actually, the center's also going to be moving on a track that brings it a little closer, in time, as it passes. So we could see tropical storm force winds as far north as New Orleans and the Lake Ponchartrain area. That's why there's a tropical storm watch in effect. Tropical storm warning is farther to the south where it's more likely those winds will occur.

JERAS: What about the rain for New Orleans? A good couple of inches?

RAPPAPORT: That's right. On National Weather Service radar, we can already see some of these rain bands, outer rain bands, from the hurricane moving ashore. The hurricane is way down here. The center of the hurricane is way down here. Here is the Louisiana coast. And here's New Orleans area. You can see some of these outer rain bands of strong thunderstorms moving into the south eastern-most part of Louisiana at this time.

JERAS: And how much rain is that going to be brings?

RAPPAPORT: Well, it's hard to get too precise on that. But a range of three to five inches is expected.

JERAS: OK, and where are we expecting this to go? Do you have anymore specifics on that?

RAPPAPORT: No change in the forecast in the last few hours. The greatest risk is still from west of Galveston and Houston through that area. To Beaumont, Port Arthur, and then continuing eastward to Lake Charles, Louisiana. So, sought western Louisiana, and the upper Texas coast.

JERAS: OK, and real quickly, Ed, we're running out of time. But it went down to a four from a five. How significant is that?

RAPPAPORT: Well, it's in the right direction. But the damage from a 4 is not that much different from a 5. We think it will come ashore Category 3 or Category 4.

JERAS: Thanks very much. Ed Rappaport from the National Hurricane Center. Back with you later today -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Jacqui. Well a trip that should take a few minutes is taking hours in parts of Texas. You've seen the live pictures. Ahead on LIVE FROM we're going to talk with a mother of two, who has given up on getting out of Houston. We think she's crazy. She says she's not.

And could gas go as high as $4 or $5 a gallon? Hurricane Rita putting the nation's supply at risk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The roads leading away from where Rita could hit have been bumper to bumper for hours. But as with many severe weather situations, some people just don't want to leave. Chris Hess, the mother of two young children is among those staying in Houston, she joins us by telephone.

Chris, are you inside your home?

CHRIS HESS, HOUSTON RESIDENT, RIDING OUT THE STORM: Yes, I am, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Why didn't you go?

HESS: Well, I was planning on going, in fact, we had a place to stay in Ft. Worth, but the traffic was just so incredible. I watched the news last night. And in the morning, at 3:00 in the morning, I got up because we were going to leave. And I saw it was gridlocked. You couldn't move. And so I made the decision instead of loading my kids in the car and doing just going nine miles in nine hours, I decided to just stay put.

PHILLIPS: Now you mentioned kids. You have a seven-year-old and a 14-year-old.

HESS: Right.

PHILLIPS: First of all, I'm going to ask you what they said to you. But aren't you concerned about staying there especially with your two kids?

HESS: Well, I am. And as soon as the traffic gets moving, if the hurricane takes a more westerly turn, I will absolutely leave. But right now, we've got the supplies. We've cleared out the closet. And we have our flashlights and batteries and everything else lined up.

But there really is no place to go. And I live two miles south of I-10. And I can't move anywhere. It's literally gridlock.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'm sure your kids have seen the news over the past couple of weeks. I'm curious, your seven-year-old? Said anything to you about being concerned or worried about the home?

HESS: Oh, absolutely. In fact, her school was quite impacted by evacuees from Katrina. And she had kids in her class that are from Katrina. And so, it became quite an issue. In fact, last night she was upset. She wanted to leave, but yet she didn't want to leave because in her mind, a hurricane means that you are going to lose your house.

And she didn't want to leave. But, you know, I talked to her and said that it was going to be safe. And then, in fact, were not leaving. So it's a real tightwire. You walk with the kids as far as trying to keep them calm and feel that they are safe and being taken care of. And yet, there's 4 million people trying to leave all at once. More of a problem.

PHILLIPS: Sure. Your 14-year-old? What did your 14-year old say?

HESS: Well, you know, 14-year-old boys, he said oh, let's stick it out. When I told him last night we made the decision to go, he felt that's the right thing to do. So now we are just kind of a wait and see.

PHILLIPS: Now you survived Hurricane Alicia, right? Didn't you stay in your home for that?

HESS: Yes, I did.

PHILLIPS: And did you suffer any damage? Or do you remember? Take me back to that. Did you feel it? Did you hear it?

HESS: Oh, absolutely. But we are lucky, lost power for a little bit of time, but not a long period of time. Maybe, I think it was not even a half a day. And there was some flooding around. But experienced no flooding, myself. And actually we had friends that lost power for, oh, three weeks. But in fact, the people across the street did, and we ran a large extension cord across from our house to their house so they could have power.

PHILLIPS: Well, God forbid anything go wrong. Is there a hospital close to you? Do you know if it is up and operating?

HESS: It is.

PHILLIPS: OK.

HESS: It's up and operating. In fact, it's pretty much within walking distance. You don't want to walk in the middle of a hurricane. But, if anything were to happen, there's a hospital close by.

PHILLIPS: Any businesses at all staying open? Or are they all closed down?

HESS: I know that for example, the Wal-Mart, the 24-hour perennially open Wal-Mart is actually closing today at 5:00. And there are other stores staying open until 5:00. But school's closed down yesterday, was the last day. And I work for a school system here in the Houston area. And --

PHILLIPS: Well, if you work for the school system. And you are saying your daughter has a bunch of Katrina kids in her class. Do you know, I mean, are all the victims that came from Katrina now living in Houston. Are they joining forces with all of you that are from there and heading out again? Do you know?

HESS: Some of them are. Absolutely. In fact, we have -- I know people that have family members that are -- that have been staying with them. And they are all loading up in a car and are going. But they have to wait until the traffic clears as well.

PHILLIPS: Chris Hess, we are going to be checking in with you. You be careful, OK.

HESS: OK, all right. Thanks.

PHILLIPS: Thank, Chris. Deb Feyerick now at Houston Intercontinental Airport on the phone with us. We talked with John Zarrella, Rick Sanchez. Both in different parts of that airport saying it's pretty chaotic, because a lot of workers didn't show up to work. Are they evacuees? We are they concerned? Did they leave early? We're trying to figure that out.

Deb, have you been able to get anymore information for us?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's what we can tell you. Walking into the airport is almost like being in a mosh pit at a rock concert, it was shoulder-to-shoulder people. People desperate to get up to the counter to try to buy tickets to evacuate, to get out. The only people who seem to be able to do it very quickly were those who didn't have any sort of carry-on baggage.

People were tripping over themselves. Couldn't get around their luggage, couldn't get around each other. Really, that's how crowded it was.

It did appear that there were much fewer people than you would normally see working at the counters. Not a lot of direction. There was one woman holding up a big sign that said security this way. That's how many people they had to start putting up signs to know what direction to work in.

There were two TSA screeners that we saw sort of checking off our credentials and our information. And then we made it through relatively quickly. It was almost more difficult to get through the ticket purchasing and make it up to security, than security itself. Security was trying to move people through as fast as they could.

And then Kyra, when you came through, I'll tell you, the concession stands, the restaurants, virtually all of them are closed. So yes, there is a sense that the people who work here are evacuating. And I did overhear one stewardess say that she heard -- she was evacuating her own children.

She was going to go to Anchorage, Alaska. And heard that some of the other flights' stewardesses hadn't shown up and they were trying to get stewardesses to work different flights. But right now, getting ready to go. A lot of chaos here -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So right now, flights are still leaving out of Houston. Do you have any idea when those flights will cease?

FEYERICK: You know, we don't. The only thing I can tell you is we heard the winds are going to begin tomorrow morning at about 8 o'clock. The board is full. As a matter of fact, I'm walking it over to it right now. Most of the flights listing on time as a matter of fact, a couple of them are leaving a couple of minutes early. There's one flight in the city that's been cancelled. Everything else is reading on time, on time, on time. And people are just really eager to get out of here -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right. Deb Feyerick there at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Thank you so much.

Also straight ahead. Evacuations under way on the Texas coast. Live pictures from Galveston now. A city all-too familiar with the damage that a hurricane can do. We'll take you there.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock exchange. Coming up, more turbulence in the airline industry. More job cuts and pay cuts. I'll have that story. More LIVE FROM after this.

PHILLIPS: "Now in the News": John Roberts clears a hurdle towards his likely confirmation as the next chief justice of the United States. By a vote of 13-5, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Roberts today, ahead of a final vote by the full Senate expected next week. Three Democrats join the committee's 10 Republicans in backing Roberts.

Iraqi officials in the southern city of Basra say they are cutting ties with the multinational forces. The decision comes amid widespread anger in Basra after the British military raided an Iraqi jail and released two British undercover soldiers. Iraqis say five civilians were killed in that raid and 44 wounded. They say they want an apology.

Raids this week across Baghdad have led to the capture of 16 terror suspects. And the seizure of large amounts of weapons, that is according to the U.S. military. In a statement issued today the military says also says U.S. forces foiled an attempted suicide car bombing in Baghdad.

LISOVICZ: Wall Street is monitoring the latest developments along the Gulf Coast. I'm Susan Lisovicz at the New York Stock Exchange.

One way, of course, to see the cause and effect of is higher oil prices yet again. And some analysts predict more pain at the gas pump because of Hurricane Rita; $4 or even $5 gas is not out of the question to some analysts.

The Texas coast area has the nation's largest concentration of oil refineries, which turned crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and other products.

Gasoline isn't the only concern, though. Home heating bills could soar this winter if natural gas production is significantly reduced. Oil prices, right now, up -- no -- actually down about 30 cents now. That after Rita was downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane and word that its path may possibly spare refineries around Houston and Galveston.

Stocks have turned higher, as a result. Dow industrials up now 37 points and Nasdaq up a couple points.

Delta plans to cut up to 9,000 jobs and slash employee pay. The nation's third largest carrier filed for bankruptcy protection just last week. Today's announcement is part of a plan to save an additional $3 billion a year. The company's CEO will take a 25 percent pay cut and all other executives will take a 15 percent pay cut.

And Northwest Airlines the s planning to eliminate 1,400 flight attendant jobs. Reports stay the airline is also planning to use nonunion flight attendants for some flights. The outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas saying this could be the biggest job cut year for airlines since 2001. That's the latest from Wall Street.

Later this hour, why environmentalists are worried about Hurricane Rita. Stay with us. More LIVE FROM right after this.

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