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CNN Live Today

Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath

Aired August 30, 2005 - 10:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Latest now on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In just one state alone, Mississippi, there are an estimated 55 people dead. And the state's governor says that death toll could be overshadowed as reports come in from just one county. Meanwhile, the mayor of New Orleans says 80 percent of his city is under water today. And a new crisis rises by the hour. A breached levee is dumping even more water into this besieged city. Nearly 1.5 million homes and businesses are without power from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. And there are warnings that some areas are so decimated those residents will not see power for more than a month.

CNN troops have fanned out across the scared landscape left in Katrina's aftermath. CNN's Adaora Udoji is in New Orleans, Miles O'Brien is in Biloxi, Mississippi, and our Ted Rowlands is in Mobile, Alabama.

We're going to begin with Miles in just a moment. First, though, let's take a look at crews fanning out across the region facing not one herculean task but several. And all, each one, of critical importance. They have to rescue the stranded, recover the dead, and assess the damage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. HALEY BARBOUR, MISSISSIPPI: Well, we had a terrible catastrophe yesterday. I mean the devastation is widespread and across I mean it's everywhere across the coast. But it's a lot of devastation all up through the state (INAUDIBLE) county. I thin it's taken a tremendous beating but all the way to I-20 and perhaps north of there we had 100 mile an hour winds. Just look here in Jackson. We probably have a million households or businesses in the state that don't have electricity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Barbour echoed the sentiments of neighboring governors. He vows that Mississippi will recover and rebuild.

An even more urgent matter this morning, rescuing victims who have raced the rising flood waters but they're losing ground and some are also losing hope. CNN's Adaora Udoji filed this report from New Orleans just minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some of these stories are just simply heartbreaking. We just heard from a woman who was just evacuated from her home, that she didn't want to leave because she had neighbors who were still trapped in their home.

You're right, we're just north of downtown New Orleans and we are looking here at rescue worker who have been actually working steadfastly over night because this entire area is completely flooded. And you're looking at six, eight feet, 10 feet of water that these houses are submerged in. And that means, for some houses, up to the attic or above and that has meant that people have been trapped in their attics or on their roofs, only able to call out perhaps if their cell phone is working. If not, screaming for help.

We've watched at least upwards of 500 people who have been rescued. Officers here telling us no one seriously injured, although there have been some folks with medical conditions, diabetes, those who need to be put on a dialysis and those were made priorities. They were taken away and brought to our facility where they can be taken care of.

The rescue workers, nearly two dozen of them. It's been a treacherous going. And I think you're taking a look right now at a woman who is getting off the boat, wading through the water and a walker. We've seen entire families, men, women and children, lots of infants and some folks even bringing their pets if they can grab them. And one woman, I think the eldest victim we've heard so far was a 97- year-old woman.

So they are slowly trying to make their way out. Rescuers going back in their boats. And it will be much easier in the daytime now because they can begin to assess the extent of the damage. I'm not sure if you can hear the helicopter but they're sending out reconnaissance missions so that they can assess exactly how far and wide the flooding is going.

We do know west of us there's been terrible flooding. And also south of us in an area called the ninth ward, it's not far from the french quarter, they've been suffering from some terrible flooding. And so the search will go on today as they try to, again, assess exactly how disastrous Hurricane Katrina has been for the area.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And that report filed just a few minutes ago by our Adaora Udoji from New Orleans, dealing with this huge levee break. We're going to have more on that in just a moment.

New Orleans, if you can believe it or not, catching a little bit of a break by the way that the storm hit. The storm went further to the east to Biloxi, Mississippi. That's where we go now and our Miles O'Brien standing by there.

Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, the mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, is calling this our tsunami. And I'm standing and the reason why, this is the parking deck for the Borivage (ph) Casino and Resort. I'm going to show you some video that was shot there in just a moment. But just remember that deck, about on the third or fourth deck, I've got some pictures that were shot from there.

But as I walk through here, the mud that is caked and the flats and (INAUDIBLE), I mean you just can't believe there's everything from lighting fixtures to a shoe just loaded with mud there. Manuals. Just pieces of bent metal. Little pieces of trim to cars and so forth. It's just real devastation here.

As you look down the street here, you'll get a sense of what's going on. The mangroves are there. Washed in along with the mud. It was a 25-foot storm surge. And I'm told as we point the camera down in that direction, the fire department just backed out of there, told us there's great concern that there are a number of fatality in that part of town because many of the people decided to weather the storm.

Now speaking of weathering the storm. I want you to look at that video that we got from ironically, strangely, a guy from California decided to come here and see a hurricane. So he flew in, he got up in that parking deck with his DV camera and he captured this amazing storm surge as it rolled in. Twenty-five feet in all with 33-foot waves as it took out house after house. Many people I have spoken to here endured Hurricane Camille in 1969, the previous literal and figurative high water for this part of the world, and have said this was by far worse than that.

Now, another mile down the road this way, as you look past that broken traffic light there and that semi and the lighthouse, there is a collapsed apartment building. We can't get to it. The road is washed out. We're told that in the midst of that surge, the apartment complex gave way and upwards of 30 people were killed there.

In all of Mississippi, the toll right now is about 54. But given what we've just heard from the firefighter who was at the other end of the street here, it's very likely that number will go up. Meanwhile, these casinos, there are about a dozen of them here, responsible for a tremendous amount of economic activity here, $500,000 a day in revenue for the state and employment for 14,000 people, all of that is all those bets are off, so to speak, for the foreseeable future.

So a tremendous impact here. And I think it's very, you know, it's early and these numbers are still preliminary. But I think we're well on the road to putting Katrina at the top of the list of natural disasters previously held, of course, by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Miles O'Brien reporting to us from Biloxi, Mississippi.

Of course, we will continue to update those numbers as the day goes on. It goes out saying, it is a very, very sad day in Mississippi and all along the Gulf Coast today.

Want to head back to New Orleans where an urgent situation is getting worse by the minute. A levee break. The question is, how did New Orleans seem to do pretty much OK yesterday during this storm? Today, a whole different story. Our Chad Myers is here to explain the levee break and the incredible challenge they have in fixing it and cleaning up that city.

Chad.

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: Yes, without some type of a gate that you can actually close to stop the water from getting into that canal, and I'll show you that canal in a second, you're going to have to put a barge or some type of very large ship over the opening to the canal. There's Lake Pontchartrain, here's the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Borne (ph). The water was pouring into Lake Pontchartrain yesterday and filling it up, getting very high. And then this storm moved away. You can see there's just nothing really left of the storm at all.

And then in the overnight hours, our first report somewhere around 2:30 in the morning, water was coming up. Let's take the other weather source. We'll show you the Vipir system now. I'm going to walk over to it and we'll get down and dirty as how this thing actually happened.

As we zoom you into New Orleans, the french quarter down to the south and also Lake Pontchartrain up to the north. We'll get you into the 17th Street canal. Here's the canal right through here. Now as we get you a little bit closer, right here on the new highway bridge, there was a levee breach. That levee breach broke the levee off to the east. That water poured out of that canal into this area. This area is known as Bucktown (ph).

But, I mean, it just poured into places like between Robert E. Lee and Marconi Canal and all the way down to the city park. This right here, the city park. A little bit farther down, the golf course here. The Metairie (ph) Cemetery right here. The country club of New Orleans right here. But from Lake View through Mid City (ph), Carrollton, and all the way through Gentili (ph), this area filled up with water in the overnight hours.

While people were obviously trying to sleep, water was coming up. A dangerous situation there. It is still going on. It's an ongoing problem until they get this break filled or get the water stopped somehow. And the only way to do that is to get some type of gate, some type of even if it's an artificial gate, to stop the water from getting into the canal. Otherwise that water doesn't stop pouring into the city.

KAGAN: Chad, as we speak. So that water continues to flow?

MYERS: Well, I hope not. I hope that they've had something the Army corps of engineers had a meeting about four hours ago and are somehow trying to get this stopped. And I hope by now they have a situation but we haven't been able to get a helicopter in the area. And clearly, if the roads are covered in 15 feet of water, we can't get a truck there to even see it.

KAGAN: Right. Even the phone service into New Orleans is kind of the big black hole right now.

MYERS: Yes.

KAGAN: All right, Chad, we'll be back with you many, many times throughout the next few hours.

Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: Sure.

KAGAN: Katrina's devastation extends far beyond the coastal states that have been declared federal disaster areas. Remnants of the hurricane spawn tornadoes here in the state of Georgia, including Carroll County in the western part of the state. At least 30 homes were severely damaged or destroyed. More than 100 other buildings suffered lesser damages.

To the north, a flood watch blankets all of Kentucky as the weakened storm dumps heavy rain. Up to a half foot of rain has already fallen. A 10-year-old girl drown when she was playing in high water and was swept into a culvert.

We've been asking you, our CNN viewers, to serve double duty as citizen journalists. If you've been impacted by Katrina or witnessed its destructive might, we would love to see your photos or your e- mail. Here now are some that have already been sent to us.

Rod Kellogg snapped this photo in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Shows a small airplane taking flight as Katrina winds lifted off the ground. And from New Orleans, we've seen this image sent by Calvin Sylvester. It show as car submerged up to the window level.

If you live in an area impacted by Hurricane Katrina, you can e- mail us your photos and video and become one of CNN's citizen journalists. You can do that by logging on to cnn.com/stories. Please include your name, your location and your phone number. Number one, we need to remind you, your safety is more important than the photo. So, please, do not put yourself in harm's way.

And if you're away from your television, you can still track Hurricane Katrina's path. You can see images of the aftermath, read witnesses accounts of the devastating storm and learn about the relief effort. Just log on to your computer and go to cnn.com/hurricane.

Let's go ahead now and check other stories in the news.

Oil futures. They rose this morning over concerns of Katrina's affect on supply and refining capacity. A JP Morgan report out today says the hurricane has already forced a 12 percent daily production halt from the Gulf of Mexico. That figure is likely to rise as damage assessments come in.

President Bush is marking a 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. The president has a speech two hours from now at a naval air station in San Diego. Mr. Bush is expected to draw parallels between World War II and the current war on terror. Police in Iraq say that 56 civilians have been killed by U.S. warplanes. Police say the bombings of two houses took place in the Qaim area where U.S. Marines have been targeting militants. U.S. officials haven't commented on the report and CNN cannot independently verify that at this time.

And 150 police officers would lose their jobs under a plan to reorganize the Detroit Police Department. Under the plan that was announced yesterday, the city's 12 police precincts would be merged into six district stations. The police union plans to ask for a court order to prevent those layoffs.

Stories of tremendous loss and amazing survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARVEY JACKSON, LOST WIFE IN STORM: (INAUDIBLE) from room, all the way to the roof and a wall came it had just opened up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: One man in Biloxi, Mississippi, recounts the horrors of the storm.

Also, a rude awakening in the river of misery in Louisiana. It's the morning after. We're going to survey the damage with Senator Mary Landrieu.

Plus, helping the victims get back on their feet. Some advice on filling out those insurance claims.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER MAYERLE, WKRG, BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI: How are you doing, sir?

JACKSON: I'm doing good (ph).

MAYERLE: What happened?

JACKSON: The house just split in half.

MAYERLE: Your house split in half?

JACKSON: Right. (INAUDIBLE) we got up on the roof, all of the way to the roof, and water came and just opened up. Divided.

MAYERLE: Who was at your house with you?

JACKSON: My wife.

MAYERLE: Where is she now?

JACKSON: Can't find her body. She's gone.

MAYERLE: You can't find your wife?

JACKSON: No. She (INAUDIBLE) I tried. I hold her hand as tight as I could and she told me, you can't hold me. She said, take care of the kids and the grandkids. And my kids.

MAYERLE: What's your wife's name in case we can put this out there?

JACKSON: (INAUDIBLE) Jackson.

MAYERLE: OK. And what's your name?

JACKSON: Harvey Jackson.

MAYERLE: Where are you guys going?

JACKSON: We ain't got no where to go. I don't know where I'm going. I'm lost. That's all I had. That's all I had. (INAUDIBLE) what I'm going to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: There are going to be so many stories like that to hear. That's just one family's tragedy from hurricane-ravaged Biloxi, Mississippi. At this hour we still don't know what happened to Harvey Jackson's wife. And our thanks to reporter Jennifer Mayerle from our affiliate WKRG for bringing us that one man's story.

Well, seeing the human toll and the devastation of this disaster is very emotional, not just for the survivors but also for the reporters covering Hurricane Katrina. I'd like you to listen in. This is CNN's Jeanne Meserve last night in New Orleans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We originally set out to do live shots from a local radio station that was determined to stay on the air through all of this. They decided that we were hampering their operations and so we kind of punted and we befriended a few security guards who gave us access to this garage. And it actually gave us quite a good view of the city. We could watch as things transpired and the electricity went out from one sector to the next. But also it also gave us some shelter. We have here some of the super structure of the garage right above us and it really blocked the worse of the rain, the worse of the wind so we could operate even at the height of the storm.

I am looking over a scene of utter devastation. An entire neighborhood, the water has come up to the eaves of the houses. And I am told this is not the worst of it. That beyond this, this is part of the upper ninth ward I'm told. I'm told the main part of the ward further down is even worse. The water I over the houses. This is a life and death situation. I think by the end of the night we're going to find a lot more deaths than we ever imagined. We talked to a couple of the people who have been rescued. They say the water came up very suddenly after the worst of the storm had gone by. It was the surge. They said it was so quick they barely had time to get to their attics. One guy had bare feet. He said he couldn't manage to get to his shoes. Another woman who I saw was on a house coat and flip-flops. Obviously had caught people totally unaware.

There are people in these houses. They are one-story houses with small attics. The water came up very suddenly, they tell us, after most of the storm had passed. They believe it was the surge. It came up quickly. They fled to their attics. They looked shell shocked. They looked like refugees. They are refugees.

As I left tonight, darkness, of course, had fallen and you could hear people yelling for help, you could hear the dogs yelping, all of them stranded, all of them hoping someone will come. But for tonight, they've had to suspended the rescue efforts. It's just too hazardous for them to be out in the boats.

There are electrical lines that are still alive. There are gas lines that are still spewing gas. There are cars that are submerged. There are other large objects. The boats can't operate. So they had to suspend operations and leave those people in the homes. We are sometimes wacky, thrill seekers but we stand in the dark and you hear people yelling for help and no one can get to them, it's a totally different experience.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: That was our Jeanne Meserve reporting. A very long day for her yesterday in New Orleans. Her reporting efforts continue today.

A little bit of the challenge in getting reports out of New Orleans right now. It's kind of a black hole because of the situation with the levee that has broken. We'll have much more on that as that information becomes available. And our thanks to Jeanne Meserve for her reporting.

Still to come on CNN LIVE TODAY, we're going to have more on those flood waters which rose just so quickly around one New Orleans hospital. At least for now, evacuation plans are on hold. We are keeping close tabs on that and we'll keep you abreast of any late- breaking developments.

Plus, downed electrical wires, dirty tap water, spoiled food. A few healthy precautions to take after you've been hit by a storm.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Our coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continues. Officials at Tulane University Hospital in New Orleans have postponed their evacuation plans for now. Earlier this morning, the hospital's vice president told CNN's Rick Sanchez that rises waters threatened the power of their generator. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN TROYER-CARAWAY, VP, TULANE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: We are contemplating air evacuation at the point of the entire hospital, which we have over 1,000 people here.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are 1,000 people in the hospital and you are now saying that you are . . .

TROYER-CARAWAY: Contemplating.

SANCHEZ: Contemplating evacuating all the patient who are in there?

TROYER-CARAWAY: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Have you . . .

TROYER-CARAWAY: If the water continues to rise at the current rate of an inch every five minutes, we have been on emergency back-up generator power since about 2:00 in the morning yesterday, about 24 hours ago. And at the current rate the water is rising, we will lose emergency back-up generator power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: At last report, the rate of that rising water had slowed down to about an inch an hour, slow enough to keep the generator dry for now.

How do you stay safe and healthy in the aftermath of a storm like Katrina? Taking some very simple precautions could end up saving your life. You avoid tap water because it could be contaminated. If you do have to use tap water, boil it for at least five minutes first. Do not drink boiled tap water if you're pregnant and do not give boiled water to a baby less than six months old. Do not open freezers or refrigerators unless you're going to use all the contents. Food will stay safe for four hours in an unopened refrigerator. For 36 to 48 hour in an unopened freezer.

What will they have left when they head back home? For some victims of the storm, unfortunately not much. Coming up, tips for filing hurricane insurance claims.

Plus, water and oil don't mix. Find out how Katrina is affecting gas prices.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Welcome back to our coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We continue to move our correspondents, producers and photographers around to try to get them into the most noteworthy places.

Our Kathleen Koch rode out the storm in Mobile, Alabama. She now is mobile herself, and she is headed towards Gulfport, Mississippi, believed to be one of the worst-hit areas of this storm.

Kathleen joining us from the road between Mobile and Gulfport -- Kathleen.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, what I'm going to do for you right now is just describe this site. We're headed west on Government Street, one of the main east-west arteries in Mobile. And the good news is that buildings here are intact. Roofs are on the homes. But windows were boarded up, windows were taped up, and I don't see any broken windows as we head west.

What I do see, though, is an incredible amount of vegetation in the roads. I'm talking branches, massive trees. The cleanup here just of the vegetation alone is going to take weeks. It's just extraordinary.

Of course, all of the power is out. So it's very dicey on the roads driving. You have to be careful when you reach an intersection. There are police out directing traffic. It's a beautiful day here. It's sunny. It's going to be 89 degrees. It's going to be hot. And people, we don't know when they're going to get the power on here. We were told last night by a county commissioner, 210,000 people in this area are without electricity for the foreseeable future.

During the height of the storm the winds here got to about 83 miles an hour. Not terrible to stand up in. We really didn't have any problems like that. Lots of debris whipping around. And the downtown area did see some level of flooding, in some areas up to four feet, but it was much less than they were expecting. They said they could have had up to 10 feet of water in the downtown area. So they were encouraged really here at the lack of devastation, physical devastation of flooding that they had. You know, physical devastation to the structures.

I want to share with you some of those stories of the people hunkered down in the hotel where we were. We were in downtown. It was an area that was under an optional sort of evacuation. A lot of people from Mobile came there, people who lived in low-lowing areas, people who lives -- there was a family who lived in a trailer home that came there with their baby daughter, stayed in the hotel with us. Other people from low-lying areas. A lot of people who fled the Mississippi Gulf Coast, people from Gulfport.

And I'll tell you very poignant story right now of a woman who had fled here from Waveland, Mississippi. She's here with her husband and her two daughters. They had to leave their home. Their home is in a very vulnerable area in Waveland, Mississippi. And they left their three dogs behind. And I promised her we were going to do our best to try to see if their home made it through.

I used to live in a town right next door to Waveland. It's called Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi. And, Daryn, I will tell you right now that is one of the great unknowns and the great fears for me, for the people who have ever lived or know anyone in these communities that are between Gulfport and New Orleans. And thousands and thousands of people live in these communities, and no one knows what's happened.

We're talking about as you go west from Gulfport, the city of Long Beach, Mississippi, past Christian, Mississippi. Then you cross a long bridge across the bay, the bay of St. Louis. We've heard that bridge is totally out.

Then you hit the town of Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, Waveland, and then you keep on going west. You hit the Louisiana border. You hit Slidell, Louisiana. No one knows what's happened to the homes, to the people, to the pets. All sorts of massive facilities are there, actually NASA-related. NASA tests its space shuttle engines in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi. It has a massive facility. We don't know if it's still standing.

The large external fuel tank for the space shuttle is built at a facility called Mishu (ph), built by Lockheed Martin. That's in Slidell. We don't know if that's intact.

So, so many unknowns. And we're heading in that direction, and we're going to provide the information as best we can to the viewers, but also to the many people in the hotel here who really just desperate for news -- Daryn.

KAGAN: You know, you bring up just so many topics that we could talk about, Kathleen. First of all, you bring up animals and pets. And, of course, human life being of the utmost importance at this point, but you have to think a lot of people left animals behind, because they perhaps weren't allowed in shelters. There is an animal story to be told here, I'm sure.

KOCH: And luckily this hotel where we stayed in the Lockheed Plaza Hotel here in Mobile was a pet-friendly hotel. And they did take in some pets. But some people have very large pets that they couldn't bring. I mean, these folks left behind a Rottweiler, a pit bull and an old, blind cocker spaniel. So they're very worried about them.

But, yes, that is part of the story. But again, these people, they were literally in tears this morning when we were saying good-bye to them. And I said, you're alive. You're alive and you can rebuild.

Now, they are also in tears, though, because -- I didn't mention this -- Kathy Gosa (ph), we were talking about Kathy Gosa's (ph) son (AUDIO GAP). He supposedly...

KAGAN: All right, I think we're actually losing Kathleen Koch's cell phone. We're grateful for the amount of time we were able to talk with her. Cell phone coverage, phone coverage in general, all along the Gulf Coast is very spotty, if existent at all this morning.

Let's go ahead and bring you up to date on some of the other developments surrounding now Tropical Storm Katrina.

The overall death toll at this hour is uncertain. But the deaths of an estimated 55 people are already being blamed on that storm. And that's just for the state of Mississippi. As of now we have no casualty estimates from Louisiana.

Oil and natural gas operations are suspended in the Gulf of Mexico. Crews are just now assessing the damage to their rigs and refineries. The gulf region provides about a quarter of U.S. oil production. Any production cutbacks could drive up prices in the already tight gasoline market.

And the insurance industry estimates that damage from Katrina could go as high as $26 billion.

These are all numbers that will continue to climb as day and the weeks go on.

Our Chad Myers is watching, as we were pointing out, now Tropical Storm Katrina but also watching exactly what's happening behind along the Gulf Coast.

It's going to be a relatively mild day, but not if you don't have air-conditioning in that part of the world -- Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it always seems, Daryn, like the day after a hurricane when you're down covering it, where I am, it just feels like it's the hottest day of the year. It's because the sun is out. The ground is clearly saturated with all that extra water. It just turns so muggy. The relative humidity, like, never drops below 90 percent after a day after a hurricane. So the heat index just rises an awful lot.

Getting a lot of e-mails about, "What happened to Slidell? What happened to Bay Saint Louis? What happened to other places up there?" And I have to be very honest with you, I don't have any information. There is nothing coming in and out simply because of the same problems we're having with the cell phone service down there with our reporters. Clearly the people that are there that could get back to us, they can't, because they have no power and they have no cell phones, period.

So, we just have to kind of take our time and see what happens there. We will obviously get you that information as soon as we have it.

(WEATHER REPORT)

KAGAN: Hey, Chad? Chad, let me jump in here.

MYERS: Daryn.

KAGAN: I want to show you some tape. Watch this with me. This is the U.S. Coast Guard that has just done absolutely heroic work. This is a rescue that they conducted, I believe yesterday, in Metairie, Louisiana. We're just getting this tape in. Metairie, of course, is a suburb of New Orleans. And this is the scene that we've seen played out time and time again, Chad, because people did not heed the warnings to get out of their homes.

MYERS: You know, I did a mock rescue. I got in that basket in Lake St. Claire up in Detroit. And maybe it's easier doing it on top of a roof. But I tell you what, that's a scary experience when they pull you up into that helicopter right there. That just feels so unnatural. You're in that box. You're absolutely helpless. But I guess it's better than being on that roof, that's for sure.

KAGAN: Yes, I guess it's all relative at that point.

MYERS: Right.

KAGAN: It's probably the best ride of your life.

MYERS: I guess.

KAGAN: And we're seeing, I believe that's a Coast Guard person trying to chop through -- trying to chop through a roof.

MYERS: Yes, exactly, Daryn, because in the wide shot, you can see the water was clearly all the way up to the girders there, to the roof rafters. So people actually had to crawl into their attic for more space to be in. And you don't have a hatch in your attic to get out. They actually had to beat through the roofs to get people out of there.

KAGAN: Chad, we're talking about the Coast Guard. We're talking about the National Guard as well. I think it's time to go to the Pentagon. Our Barbara Starr is standing by for that.

Lately when we hear about the National Guard, we hear about people -- troops heading overseas. But the National Guard is being sent into the Gulf Coast area to help. And a lot of help is needed.

Here's Barbara Starr with more on that -- Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPENDENT: Well, Daryn, CNN has learned that the United States military, the northern command out in Colorado, today has made a recommendation to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that a joint task force be set up for hurricane relief.

What does all of this mean? It means that a three-star general, if this request is approved, will be put in charge of coordinating all relief for the hurricane, both the active-duty military and the National Guard.

Military officials tell us one of the reasons they are making this recommendation today is they are looking at the storm path of Katrina, even though much downgraded now, as it moves up into the Ohio River Valley, into the Mid-Atlantic. They believe they will see very bad whether spreading, flooding possibly, in seven or eight more states.

It is a matter of great concern, because they know that all of this cleanup, all of this recovery, is going to go on for some time. The officials working it right now, they say, are likely to become exhausted and worn out in the days ahead.

So what they want to do is put the structure into place to be ready to go and ready to have this relief effort go on for some days and weeks now.

What officials tell us is they will designate Maxwell Air Force base in Alabama as a federal coordinating center that both the military, the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are likely to start working out of Maxwell in substantial numbers. They expect more requests for military assistance to come in.

It certainly is expected that the Pentagon will approve this request for a military joint operating task force.

Now, the question about whether the National Guard is stretched because of its deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, the numbers don't show that yet. There's still plenty of National Guard capacity, troops if you will, out there. But the sheer magnitude of the destruction that has been seen so far and what they expect possibly in the days ahead with more rain and more storms, they say they simply are going to take this next step and try and put in more substantial recovery effort into place -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. A lot of good information there. Thank you.

Coming up, Katrina and oil prices, how the hurricane may affect what you pay at the pump. We're going to check in on the latest oil and gas price in business news coming up next.

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KAGAN: Insurance industry analysts say damage from Katrina could hit $26 billion. That would make it one of the most expensive hurricanes ever in the U.S. In the days and weeks ahead, thousands of people will be returning to homes they barely recognize.

David Daniel is with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. He joins me from Baton Rouge to talk about what happens next.

David, thank you for being with us.

DAVID DANIEL, NABA: Good morning.

KAGAN: Do you think this indeed will be the worst ever disaster for the insurance industry?

DANIEL: Well, it's so early to tell. We can't even know what the extent of the damage is in New Orleans. We know it's going to be severe.

I'm in Baton Rouge, and our damage in the Baton Rouge area was relatively moderate to light. So we're in pretty good shape here, except for power outages and some fallen oak trees. But New Orleans and all east of there is our largest concern.

KAGAN: A basic homeowner's insurance policy does not include flooding. It doesn't cover that. DANIEL: That's correct. You have to have a separate flood insurance policy. So we'll have a number of, a great deal of wind storm claims and actually some fire claims as well to be handled under the homeowners' policies, but then flood coverage will come into play for the actual flood damage.

KAGAN: Do most people in your part of the world -- Baton Rouge, New Orleans, that lower part of the Louisiana -- do they just as a practice get flood insurance in addition to homeowners?

DANIEL: It depends on where you live. In New Orleans, certainly most people do purchase flood insurance coverage. And it's a good thing, because there will be so many claims for flood.

KAGAN: When you look at what has happened with insurance claims over the last year, the four terrible hurricanes last year in Florida, what this is going to cost the insurance agency -- the insurance industry, does this eventually affect all of us in terms what it costs just to buy insurance, whether it's for your car or for your home or your business?

DANIEL: Well, it does. But the number of major hits that the insurance industry takes certainly will affect the pricing in future years. But the insurance industry is well-poised for claims like this and for catastrophes like this. This is what people pay their insurance premium for, and this is when the insurance companies step up.

KAGAN: Well, let's hope so, because there's a lot of people who are going to need some help. David Daniel, thank you for your input on the business side of insurance.

So now let's talk about the consumer side, what you need to know about your insurance if your home has been destroyed or damaged by a storm. Here with today's top five tips, we welcome back our personal finance editor, Gerri Willis, in New York City.

Gerri, good to see you.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN PERSONAL FINANCE EDITOR: Very good to see you, Daryn.

Tip number one here, you want to contact your insurer right away. The industry is making available 800 numbers on the insurance industry's Web site. That's iii.org. You're better off if you have your agent's card and phone number to contact them directly. That's a very good idea. And keep in mind that they are going to be out in the streets as well. So if you don't have access to the Internet and you don't have a phone, people are going to be coming around as soon as some of this water is moved away.

KAGAN: All right. Let's think about getting some money here. First of all, you need to make an inventory of what has been damaged.

WILLIS: Yes. It's up to you to document what you have lost. And by that I don't just mean structural damage to your home, I also mean damage to the contents inside the home. Keep in mind here that people in this area, like people in Florida last year, may find a surprise when they start talking to their agents. They may be on the hook for a deductible that is a percentage of the value of the house rather than a flat deductible. So if you have the opportunity to check any of your insurance documents, you might want to do that before you get adjusters in.

KAGAN: All right, Gerri, I'm going to step in the middle of your tips here. We're going to get back to you in a minute.

First, I want to show you this new video we're getting in here. This shows the widespread devastation of Katrina. This is Carroll County, Georgia. And for those familiar with the Atlanta area, this is the area out I-20. So it's west of Atlanta on Interstate 20. Some tornadoes that were part of Hurricane Katrina pulling through this area, wiping out not just a number of homes, but a lot of chicken farms in this area. Poultry farms. And this is live pictures we're getting in.

Chad? Does Chad -- Chad?

MYERS: Yes, Daryn.

KAGAN: Chad, if you can chime in, because you know, we focus so much on what happened along the Gulf Coast with good reason. But this is a really good daylight picture of what we saw happen probably in the late afternoon hour, not that far from Atlanta yesterday.

MYERS: No, exactly. We knew there was spin in the atmosphere. There were tornado watches in effect, and literally over 200 tornado warnings yesterday. But only seven official tornadoes reported on the ground. It's hard to see where the exact path is here. But we're kind of -- I'm trying to follow those trees. That right there might be about F1 or F2 damage when all of the walls are still standing, the roofs are still fine. But when I was looking at this before I got on the air here, I was seeing some possibly even some F3 damage where those homes...

KAGAN: And what do you look for when you're trying to figure what number that is?

MYERS: Well, OK. An F0 is a minor tornado. You're going to lose some shingles, maybe some pieces of the roof. An F1, you're going to lose a lot of the roof and you're going to break a lot of windows. F2, you're going to lose the roof, but all of the walls will still be standing.

This F-scale, this Fujita scale is not really a wind scale per se. It's a damage scale.

So now we get to F4. F4 means the whole house is damaged. Two or three of the walls are down. The roof is gone. But you can still find the house. And then an F5 means that all of the walls are gone and all you can find is a slab.

Now, it does look like most of the damage may have been done to the out buildings there. And you never know the structural integrity of an out building. You know, barns have open doors, and they can act like big parachutes.

So, when we were looking at some of the video earlier, some of the machinery looked like it was even thrown around. That's another way to figure out how big the wind speeds were.

You're looking at damage here on the one side of the house all the way to the other side of the house. So you have to assume that the tornado was fairly wide, possibly 50 feet wide, maybe 100 feet wide at that point. But then you look at the barn, and you only see scattered damage. And the house, boy, that roof is just about gone.

KAGAN: And what happens in the atmosphere that makes it a hurricane along the coast? Is it the exposure to water, around then it turns into tornados? Because we really did have, it seemed, like a lot of rain yesterday here in the Atlanta area as well.

MYERS: Daryn, what happens is that there's so much spin -- we call it vorticity. But all it means is that the atmosphere is spinning. When we take the hurricane, and we push it on land, that spin starts to slow down, because of the friction of the land. Obviously the land is more porous. It has more friction than the flat ocean. The ocean is just one big flat surface, no friction at all.

So when you bring the hurricane on land, you lose the water and you increase friction. The hurricane starts to slow down. Some of that spin actually gets translated into other storms that are on the east and sometimes the northeast side. I'm talking individual cells, not hurricanes or tropical storms. That hurricane, the tropical storm was still in one big piece even as of an hour ago. Now it's a tropical depression.

But on the outside of the hurricane, small little cells will spin that have their own little vorticity, their own little spin. And each one of those spinners had tornado warnings on it yesterday, indicated by Doppler radar. That one there is truth on the ground.

KAGAN: All right, Chad, thanks for helping us interpret those pictures we're getting live out of Carroll County, Georgia, just to the west of Altanta, Georgia.

I want to bring very quickly, Gerri, didn't want to shortchange your five tips. I believe we were on number three.

WILLIS: All right.

KAGAN: Just be patient, live with it for now.

WILLIS: Well, you've got to get those adjusters in to see the kind of damage like we just did in those pictures, so they can give you the money you need to fix things up. So you only want to make temporary repairs, and that's the repairs that will keep you and your family safe. If you've got a big hole in the roof, you want to throw a tarp over it, but you don't want to bring contractors in right yet.

KAGAN: And what about con artists who are out there?

WILLIS: I'm telling you, it's inevitable after these big storms that people come in posing as legitimate contractors. They say they're going to fix your house. They take your money. They run. So be very careful if you're hiring anybody right now. You're probably best off waiting until you get that adjuster in and get some kind of idea of much you're going to have on hand to spend.

KAGAN: And just real quickly, I'll do number five for you. Protest your settlement if you don't like the first offer from your insurance company.

WILLIS: That's right.

KAGAN: Gerri, thank you. Good to have you back with us.

WILLIS: Thank you.

KAGAN: We have a lot more coverage to get to. A look along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We are going to do that right after this.

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KAGAN: I want to give you another look at these live pictures. This, once again, is Carroll County, Georgia. It is just southwest of Atlanta. It was among the areas hardest hit in the state of Georgia.

It was just after 5:00 local time yesterday two sport utility vehicles colliding as heavy storms moving through this area. One person was killed there. Authorities say at least 30 buildings have been severely damaged in this area or destroyed. This is from a tornado touching down yesterday afternoon, and more than 100 buildings suffered some slight damage.

Now, we're getting a lot of calls, understandably, into us here at CNN. You're out there, you're watching, you want to help. Here are some of the numbers up for you. We have the American Red Cross, Operation Blessing, and also America's Second Harvest. These are all people and organizations that are ready and outfitted to go into the area and help the thousands of people who absolutely need help and will for some amount of time.

And if you don't have a pencil handy and aren't able to get it right now, just go to cnn.com. We have all of those numbers and more available for you 24/7. More coverage ahead at the top of the hour.

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