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CNN Live Today

President Bush Visits Hurricane-Damaged Area; New Orleans Press Conference

Aired September 05, 2005 - 12:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: In New Orleans, the rescues go on as the reality of widespread death begins to hit home.
And before heading back to the Gulf Coast, President Bush unveiled his choice to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The choice, a familiar face.

I'm Daryn Kagan at CNN Center in Atlanta. Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the state of emergency created by Hurricane Katrina.

We're awaiting a news conference by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the city's police chief. We'll bring that to you live when it does begin.

We're going to start our hour, though, with the state of emergency along the Gulf Coast.

Reinforcements are streaming into New Orleans today. A welcome sight for evacuees, relief workers and city officers who have been working virtually around the clock. The city's mayor is arranging for those officers, plus firefighters and dispatchers, to take their families to Atlanta or Las Vegas for at least five consecutive days off.

More food and water is also streaming in. So far in Louisiana alone, 620,000 bottles of water have been delivered to distribution centers, along with 320,000 meals.

And just as precious, the incoming flow of medical workers. Volunteer physicians are setting up shop in the region, but red tape has stalled the work of hundreds of others. For instance, a state-of- the-art mobile hospital is marooned in Mississippi, along with the 100 surgeons and paramedics.

The evacuees sent out. Four planes carrying more than 500 hurricane victims have landed in Phoenix, Arizona. The city's Veterans Memorial Coliseum will house about a thousand people. Tucson, Arizona, taking in about 800 at its convention center.

And in New Orleans, engineers continue their work at the site of the breached levees. A top priority, repairing the pumps that will allow the drainage of the floodwaters from the city.

President Bush is on his second tour of the hurricane-damaged region today. In the last hour, he visited a staging area for the relief efforts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And that's where we find CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

Deb, hello.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Daryn.

Well, we were told that the president and the governor are at a shelter at a Baptist church just nearby. They're taking a tour. They're meeting with some of the people who were displaced because of the hurricane. A huge diaspora of folks in New Orleans spread out across the entire state as they seek refuge and try to figure out exactly what it is they're going to have do to get on with their lives.

Now, the governor was not exacty expecting to show up at the airport today. She wasn't notified about the meeting until very early this morning, when her office called the White House and said, "Is the president coming or not?" She was told that he was arriving, and so she made sure that she was at the airport to greet him when he did touch down.

There's been a little bit of tension between the White House and the governor's office. The White House feeling that the National Guard should have been federalized so that they could be mobilized as troops. The governor saying, no, it was more important having them under state authority so that they could be used as law enforcement, so that she could give the order to them to help keep the peace, especially in the streets of New Orleans, which had a lot of problems immediately after the hurricane -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Deborah Feyerick, live in Baton Rouge. Thank you for that.

Now we want to move on to New Orleans. That is the epicenter of Katrina's rage in terms of flooding, and the nucleus of federal relief efforts.

Our Nic Robertson is there with the latest.

Nic, hello.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, the very latest while I've been standing here right now, I'm just watching the water right next to me. And for the first time I've been able to see -- and I don't know if the camera can pick it up right now, but I can actually see the movement of debris in the water, small bits of debris, being caught on what appears to be a current pulling it back.

The water actually pulling back. We've seen a very, very, very slow ebbing away. We'll have to see if this maintains this sort of flowback.

But almost a sort of tidal pullback on the water there. So this is the first time that I've seen that.

But the real effort today still very much on the rescue effort that's going on, on the recovery effort. And a lot of focus and emphasis put on the recovery now, the recovery of the dead bodies.

Three different teams of morticians teams are working today. Morticians, medical examiners going out trying to begin to recover some of those dead bodies. We have a medical team going through here right now, part of the rescue effort.

But those -- the coroner's teams going out to the homes, recovering the bodies from the streets and from the homes, bringing them back to dry land, putting them in refrigerated trucks, we're told, removing them from the area to more sanitary conditions inside a temporary morgue, where an identification process of DNA, dental records, fingerprinting, all of that will be done, we're told, to identify these bodies.

The mayor just yesterday told us there could be many thousands of bodies there. We don't know if there's any update likely. We may hear that coming up in the press conference from the -- from the mayor and the police chief coming up fairly soon. But the concern that he had that these bodies could spread disease -- but the effort now today focusing on gathering up and finding out where all these bodies are.

KAGAN: Nic, meanwhile, in another part of the city in Jefferson Parish, some folks getting to go back, at least to get a look and perhaps gather some things.

ROBERTSON: For the first time being allowed home. Now, there are some strict conditions set on this.

There's a curfew between 6:00 a.m. in the morning, 6:00 p.m. in the afternoon. And people coming back will have to have a photo I.D. and prove residency of Jefferson Parish. Then the police say they will allow them in.

The police are advising these people to bring with them cash, food and water. The police say when they come back to their neighborhoods they won't be able to find any of those commodities in the area, that the area is still essentially deserted with nothing operating.

Now, the police say that they do recognize that some people won't have those identification papers proving residency in the area. They say that they know people perhaps left their homes in such a hurry, didn't gather up those kinds of pieces of paper, documentation. The police say those people will be able to come back to Jefferson Parish on Thursday -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Nic Robertson live in New Orleans. Thank you very much.

We go from the ground in New Orleans, up above, listening in once again to J.T. Alpaugh. He's the photographer who's been shooting these images for over the last week. Now he steps into the reporter role. Dave Arnold taking the pictures.

Let's go ahead and listen in. J.T. ALPAUGH, HELICOPTER REPORTER: It is absolutely flooded. Most of the -- most of the ones we've been seeing have been not working properly.

We have found some out to the east, but nothing in the immediate New Orleans area that's been working. And that's not to say there are none. We just haven't seen any.

Now, we do see a generator running. There is a generator in that station, and we can tell because of the smoke coming out of the exhaust system. So it -- something -- something may be running in there.

It's hard to tell because nothing's exposed there -- some pipe systems. So it's possible that maybe that is pumping water out of the pipe system back into the 17th Street Canal.

Again, we're going to -- we're going to pan right into this area. And again, he flooded area is just west...

KAGAN: And we'll continue to go in and out of J.T. Alpaugh's coverage and his pictures and his commentary.

Meanwhile, so we've been focusing on New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Let's not forget about the Mississippi coast, which was completely wiped out by Katrina.

We go to Biloxi, Mississippi, and our Ted Rowlands -- Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Here in Biloxi, they're starting to see some signs of military aid. Within the last few hours, some personnel from the Navy came ashore here. They spent the night out of -- on an island.

The Iwo Jima dropped them off. The Iwo Jima is now in New Orleans. But they had dropped off some Navy personnel. They've come onshore, and now they're aiding in the deployment of Marines.

And the job here is whatever really needs to be done. According to one of the Navy commanders we've talked to, they plan to help by bringing in large equipment to try to do something with all of this rubble which is scattered across the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

They are also going to be helping with feeding the folks here. They're bringing ice, bringing water. And, in fact, they said they're going to go pick up some Navy cooks to help cook at a high school here.

The need for food and water continues. There are a lot of people along this Gulf Coast that just are sustaining themselves day by day. And that is going to take place for weeks ahead as they can make decisions as to where they're going to be long term.

And the problem here, unlike in Louisiana, where you have people concentrated in certain shelters that were ferried out and rescued, here people fending for themselves, and are now just sort of coming out and scratching -- or wiping their eyes and saying, hey, I'm out of food, I'm out of water, where do I go? What do I do?

The communication is still an issue down here. It's getting better by the day, but still a major issue.

Meanwhile, the search and rescue still continues. We're talking about miles and miles of completely flattened, devastated areas, and they are still looking for signs of life. We haven't heard any reports of people being found today or yesterday, but we did have reports the day before of two people being rescued.

And they're going into large rubble piles with cameras and dogs, looking for signs of life and signs of death. And they're dealing with the bodies as they come up. Safe to say, one of the big questions here, what do you do with the rubble? It is scattered everywhere.

What is left of homes, trees? It's just everywhere. It's overwhelming. And how they're going to get it out is the big question. Do they get it out, and when do they start that process?

KAGAN: So Ted, because they're at even that level, where you just have to even (INAUDIBLE) to do with the debris, is it too early to talk about rebuilding and how they plan to do this? And do these casinos -- are they committed to rebuilding there in Biloxi? And would they do it in the same way, so that they're not technically on land?

ROWLANDS: Well, yes. You know, the law dictates that they have to operate the casino on a barge, and then they can have the hotels on land, right next to the casinos. And the governor actually, according to a few reports, did mention that they might be flexible in terms of a short-term fix.

It's very key for Mississippi to get these casinos up and running because they bring in an estimated $500,000 a day. The casinos, with that kind of money, obviously want to get up and running as well.

So the local economy is hoping that that happens. How it happens and when it happens remains to be seen because of the sure devastation here.

You don't have schools. You don't have police stations, fire stations, water, electricity. There's a lot of things that have to be done before they start rebuilding casinos.

KAGAN: Let me just jump in here. Ted Rowlands, thank you, from Biloxi, Mississippi.

We go back to New Orleans now. City officials, including the police, having a news conference. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DEP. CHIEF WARREN RILEY, NEW ORLEANS POLICE: ... rescues because of the thousands of people that were stranded on houses, in attics and tree limbs that were surrounded by water.

We have got more into a law enforcement mode now. We are targeting looters. We are targeting people who want to create mayhem in the city.

We have 2,200 military, regular troops in right now, over a thousand National Guardsmen, over 400 federal agents, as well as a host of sheriffs from around this country and other law enforcement agencies from around this country. So we probably have somewhere around 4,000 law enforcement people here now or more. So that has made a tremendous difference.

We continue to lock down this city to ensure that looters and any violent criminals have a very serious force to address. They will be addressed by a very serious force.

So we feel very confident we're identifying locations and responding to complaints that are being made where people are in town, where we have criminals, rather, in the city who are going through homes looting them. So we have identified some.

As you know, we had a shooting on yesterday. And so for clarity purposes, the shooting on yesterday which involved six perpetrators and several uniformed New Orleans police officers that occurred on Danziger Bridge, there was a rescue worker who heard gunshots.

He called the police. We sent a unit out. They observed six subjects with weapons walking up the Danziger Bridge.

A task force unit of about six or eight officers responded in a van. When they got out of the van, they approached the subjects who were several, several feet away, who fired on the police officers. The officers returned fire, striking four of the subjects immediately.

Two of the subjects fled. They were also pursued.

Of the four, two of those subjects died on the scene. The other two that we initially shot are hospitalized. Two others fled. One of those subjects was shot, and he is hospitalized. And the sixth person was apprehended. At no time did we fire on or have a conflict with the core of engineer workers or contractors, or their security.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

RILEY: Right now we continue to rescue people. There are many, many people that are still in homes. We are bringing them over to Henderson and Chapatulas (ph), where the military continues to evacuate them.

There are, to our surprise, still thousands of people, thousands of people that are in this city that we are trying to identify and locate. Unfortunately, there are some people who at this point do not want to leave the city. We are working with them and talking to them and trying to convince them that there is absolutely nothing here for them to stay. No jobs, no food, or any reason for them to stay. So we're working with those people as well. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll take questions now.

QUESTION: I want to ask you about...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't we make our way from left to right? We'll make it around, one loop around.

QUESTION: How many people are left in the city?

RILEY: I would be -- I would be guessing. I really don't know. I would be guessing.

QUESTION: Under 10,000?

RILEY: I would like to think it's under 10,000.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Chief, I'd like to ask you about the force itself. Are all your officers accounted for?

RILEY: No, all of our officers are not accounted for. We have probably about -- we have about a thousand officers here of our 1,641 officer force. We have another hundred recruits, of which half of those recruits are still here. We do have somewhere around 400 or 500 that are not accounted for.

QUESTION: And do you have any idea where they are?

RILEY: No, we certainly don't. Some of those officers left for various reasons. Some we understand.

Some of those officers lost their homes, they don't know where their families are, where their spouses are, and they're out looking for them. Some left because they simply could not deal with this catastrophe.

QUESTION: Dozens of New Orleans police officers (INAUDIBLE) academy up in Baton Rouge. They've been there since Wednesday. Why were they sent there? Or why did they go there?

RILEY: I have -- I have no idea. I have no idea.

QUESTION: Chief, there are more law enforcement now on the ground here, (INAUDIBLE) outside this community that have come here to help?

RILEY: Well, they have been briefed. They do know what their assignments are.

Primarily, a lot of those out of town officers are assigned to communities. We have assigned them to communities to prevent the looters in -- from going in. We know the looters hit a lot of stores. We know as the water recedes they will be targeting homes. So we have those officers, as well as the military, around various communities throughout the city.

Communications is a problem. Now, fortunately, our communication sector, we have our communications up and running relatively well right now within NOPD.

We are trying to marry some of those other agencies' radios with our system so that we can communicate with them. But, in that absence, we have officers assigned to their units. So we do have communications with them.

QUESTION: You mentioned that some people do not want to leave New Orleans. Are people being ordered to evacuate even if they do not want to? Do you have that authority?

RILEY: Yes, we do.

QUESTION: Chief Riley, earlier you said that the city is progressing very, very well. Could you quantify for us or give us some examples of how the city is progressing and maybe give us some insight as to where your major challenges still are?

RILEY: When I say that we're progressing, we're progressing because we have such a large law enforcement agency, so many law enforcement people here now. We feel as though the city is very secure. We feel that it's very secure.

The fact that the water is going down makes a big difference for us as well. The chaos which moved from being chaos to organized chaos, we are now better organized. We're better prepared now. We are able to communicate.

There was a period of time where we could not communicate with each other. There was a period of time where we had officers stranded over throughout the city.

Those things have gone away. We're now more cohesive. We are able to put plans together. We are able too give directions. And we are able to do a coordinated effort with the various -- with our department, but also with the sheriff's officers and other agencies and the military that are in the city.

What was the second part of your question?

QUESTION: Where are your major challenges still?

RILEY: Still getting people out of the city. Still, a lot of people are out there stranded that we don't know about. They're in homes where they haven't been able to get out of a window or get on a roof. Rescue is still a priority.

Another challenge -- rather, another challenge is obviously those who remain behind for criminal activity. We're targeting those people. So those are two big challenges. Another is to ensure that our officers who have been through pure hell, who have done some heroic things -- and those things will come out at some point -- we don't even know what -- the ingenuity and originality that officers have used to survive and to sustain this has been incredible.

So we have to take care of our officers. We have to focus on -- yes.

QUESTION: Sir, you said that one of your biggest challenges is still getting people out of the city, but today they started letting people back in to certain areas. Do you feel that that's hurting your efforts at all?

RILEY: Well, we're not letting people back in New Orleans. I know that has happened in another parish. How that will hinder that parish or their adjacent parishes, I do not know. I do not believe it will affect New Orleans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Have you talked with or gotten any sort of confirmation from other law enforcement agencies as to how long they're willing to stay and continue to assist you?

RILEY: I can tell you the military will be here until we no longer need them. The federal agents will be here until we no longer need them.

Some of the sheriff's officers, we are sure that they will be here for maybe seven, eight, 10 days, a little bit longer. And we'll begin to cycle them out.

We have many other law enforcement agencies that want to come here and help. We're trying to cycle them in so that we will have a significant force for the next six to eight weeks.

QUESTION: Chief, real quick, what are you doing about controlling people who are coming in and doing their own independent rescue operations? We're hearing stories of people that are just rolling up with boats, and they take off and they're rescuing people on their own. We've got a Hollywood celebrity in town sort of doing his own rescue operation.

How are you handling those situations?

RILEY: Well, we're trying to coordinate this the best that we can. But we're certainly, initially, anyway, we are not opposed to people going out saving lives. We are not opposed to them, because if we couldn't get to them, if someone else could, we appreciate that assistance.

However, we do ask that anyone that's doing that at this point, that they come to the foot of Canal Street at Harrah's Casino where we are staged, so they can be part of an organized effort.

QUESTION: Will they be subject to any kind of law enforcement, you know, detention or orientations?

RILEY: They have not broken the law. I mean, they save lives. They rescue people. So we appreciate that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: In trying to get people out this morning, I saw people who were walking down streets and were stopped. Pulled off bicycles and were put in vans, and they didn't want to go. Is that sort of practice happening all over the city? And did that start today?

RILEY: Well, I'm not -- I'm not aware of that, but if it is happening it could be a number of things.

Some of it could involve a curfew, a law that's in effect right now to keep people off the street. Some of them may be taken off and evacuated. I really don't know the circumstances.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

RILEY: OK. I'm really not aware of it. So...

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) what are you giving your officers on the street in terms of trying to get people out, trying to make them leave?

RILEY: We are not -- we're just directing them to an evacuation point. Our law enforcement people are not involved in taking people off the street and forcing them out of the city at this point.

That may -- there may come a time where we get into that mode, but we are not there right now. But we are directing everyone to locations where they can be evacuated out of the city.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Where are the pickup points? We were watching people come out of a neighborhood off of St. Charles yesterday, asking us where to go, and saying that they weren't getting information from officers, the fire department. They were just sort of sitting in a big group off to the side.

Are there certain places where...

RILEY: We tried to have our officers tell people where to go. Right now, to Henderson and Chapatulas (ph), which is at the foot or the beginning of the convention center. That's where we are operating right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have a question over here?

QUESTION: Yes. Chief, if you're not forcing the people off the street, (INAUDIBLE), if you're not doing that, can you talk a little bit about what your officers are doing and how they're talking and trying to convince people? Just clarify a little bit what your message is. I don't know what the -- what the victims are hearing, but what you are putting out.

RILEY: Well, what our officers are basically telling people, there is absolutely no reason to stay here. There are no jobs. There are no homes to go to. No hotels to go to.

There is absolutely nothing here. We advised people that this city has been destroyed. It has completely been destroyed. And we try to direct them to get out of town so they can get with family members and other parts of the country or other parts of this state that would benefit them more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: In terms of (INAUDIBLE)?

RILEY: Well, the federal law enforcement agencies, especially locally, those that are assigned here, we've always had a great relationship with them. And that continues to build. It simply builds on a national level now.

So we're very happy with the various -- with ICE, with ATF, with DEA, with Customs, with Border Patrol, with the FBI and those other federal agencies that are here. They're here to help. They accept their assignments no matter how good or how bad it is. They go out and they do what they need to do.

So we feel that things right now over the last few days from the federal government, from the federal agencies, has been excellent over the last few days, a couple of days.

QUESTION: How about the days before that?

RILEY: Well, everybody already knows about that. That was a very, very bad situation. But I really want to focus on the more positive side right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Chief, when they start doing the recovery efforts, do you know where they're going to (INAUDIBLE)?

RILEY: Well, right now at Zeffer's Field (ph), there is a federal de-mark (ph) team, and they're responsible for recovery and storing the bodies. So at this point it's out at Zeffer's Field (ph). I'm sure they're going to probably have another location soon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes?

QUESTION: And where is that in New Orleans?

RILEY: That's actually in an adjacent parish in Metairie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Chief, if I'm hearing this right, this crisis here, two-thirds of your officers stayed and fought like hell (INAUDIBLE). One-third of your officers left. How do you put this force back together and what's the morale of the guys who are staying here right now?

RILEY: Well, you know, sometimes as bad as a tragedy is, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We see the morale picking up. We see a closeness with officers that probably didn't really know each other right now.

So everybody's pulling together. Everybody's proud of those officers who stayed here through this entire ordeal. So I think there will be a closeness that's there.

The morale -- the morale comes from the fact that the officers feel that they saved many, many lives. The best part of it was getting people out of here and not seeing our citizens look and treated like refugees.

So that was a big, big relief to us. I think once that was accomplished, we were more able to focus on the mission of cleaning up this city, identifying the criminals, identifying and addressing the looters.

QUESTION: Those who didn't stay?

RILEY: Those who didn't stay, that's a subject for another day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: What can the people who have not yet been evacuated do to draw attention to themselves to help you get them out?

RILEY: For those areas that have high water, we have rescue teams continuing to work there from the federal, state and local level, as well as NOPD. So if they're in high water, we're out there. We're there for them.

Other people are still inside and they can actually walk out. They can actually walk out of their homes.

QUESTION: Wave?

RILEY: Wave, flag us down, and we'll take care of it.

Yes, sir?

KAGAN: We've been listening in to the deputy police chief of New Orleans, Warren Riley. More on what he had to say in just a moment.

First, though, the live pictures we are watching on the right side of your screen, that is Marine One. President Bush taking off from there. That's the emergency operation headquarters in Baton Rouge.

We believe from there he's going to Poplarville, Mississippi, and taking a look at other areas of Mississippi as well, as the president makes his second trip to the region in the next three days. We'll continue to follow President Bush's trip, as well as listen in to the deputy police chief of New Orleans. And we'll get back to that in just a moment.

Also ahead, they've become a powerful team in the face of disaster. Just ahead, you're going to find out what the former presidents Bush and Clinton are doing today. They are in Houston, Texas. They have a plan for helping the victims of Katrina.

And President Bush moving fast, following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. What's behind his decision to act so quickly? We are back in a moment.

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