Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Hurricane Rita's Effect on Lake Charles; Traffic Back Into Houston; People Return to New Orleans after Rita; Weather from Hurricane Rita

Aired September 26, 2005 - 10:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks. We'll see you tomorrow.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We'll see you tomorrow, from New Orleans. And now we send it off at Daryn Kagan at the CNN Center in Atlanta.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Miles. Get ready for another three hours of a lot of news packed in. Let's start by taking a look at what's happening "Now in the News."

President Bush assesses another toll of Hurricane Rita. This hour he's being briefed on the storm's impact on oil refineries and rigs on the Gulf Coast. Early reports indicate damage has been much less than feared. Mr. Bush is due to speak near the end of this hour. You'll see that live here on CNN.

Just within the last hour, word of a historic step toward peace in Northern Ireland. Independent monitors are verify that the Irish Republican Army has deposed of the weapons it massed during its decade long fight against British rule. IRA leaders have vowed to disarm as part of an ongoing peace process.

Some two dozen suspected al Qaeda members were rushed to court this morning in Madrid, Spain. Three were accused of helping to plot the 9/11 attacks. Of those, two were acquitted and the accused cell leader was convicted. Asterine (ph) was sentenced to 27 years, far short of the thousands of years sought by prosecutors.

The State Department's top public relations person is in Egypt today on her first trip to the Middle East. Yesterday, Karen Hughes praised an Egyptian educator and his religious school for speaking out against terrorism. Today, Hughes meets with Egypt's prime minister.

And a good morning to you on this Monday morning. From CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan.

We're going to start with the latest damage assessment in the wake of Hurricane Rita. Cities were mostly spared by Rita but towns near the storm's landfall have significant losses. A Louisiana parish on the border with Texas is under as much as 15 feet of water. Look at those pictures. Just incredible. Every home was destroyed in one town. In another, 90 percent of the homes are gone.

Residents, meanwhile, are returning to homes in the Houston area. Many are ignoring a state plan to come back on a staggered schedule. Gas stations have reopened and there's been no repeat of the monstrous traffic delays during last week's evacuation.

But power is still out to about 300,000 customers in the Houston area and hundreds of thousands of others throughout Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. A number of those power outages are related to Hurricane Katrina.

There's some relief in the oil industry, that Rita mostly missed plants. The Valero's Energy Company's plant in Port Arthur, Texas, is the most heavily damaged refinery. It faces three to five weeks of repairs. Sixteen Texas refineries remain shut down. We are also awaiting an update on the status of oil platforms in the Gulf.

The high waters are receding in Lake Charles, Louisiana, but there still is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the storm hit community. Our Chris Lawrence is in Lake Charles where he says it could be some time before things return to normal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some of these people, they just they don't want to come back here. But the problem is, the people who do. We expect some of the officials from Louisiana state government to come out later today and tell people who have evacuated, basically, do not come back to Lake Charles until further notice.

This is just one of the reasons why. When you take a look at some of the damage that this storm did. It literally just snapped huge trees in half. Put them right on top of a lot of homes. And as you walk down streets, I mean we've got power lines tangled into a lot of trees. And from what we've seen over the past couple days, we're not talking a few streets or even a few dozen streets, hundreds of streets around Lake Charles look just like this. This is not going to be an easy fix.

As the repair crews have been going around and making their assessments, we have learned that they have found major electrical problems here in the city of Lake Charles. What that means is, even as they go through and get some of the neighborhoods back up, it won't matter until they fix these major electrical problems. Some of the main lines that feed right into the city.

And if you need any examples of why they tell people to evacuate, here's one right in front of you. I mean you take a look at this tree, literally just ripped out of its roots, right out of the ground. You can manage what it would be like to be a family inside that house when that thing comes down right on top of you.

We have seen scenes like this all over the city of Lake Charles. It's just an incredible amount of devastation. Some sporadic looting. Maybe out more than a dozen reports. Some people actually slept in their businesses to protect them after what they saw in New Orleans. But nothing to that extent.

But again, we expect some officials to come out today and tell people, if you're even thinking about coming back to Lake Charles, it may be a week, it may be several weeks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And now on to these pictures. That was Chris Lawrence in Lake Charles.

Here's a chance to see what a storm surge looked like. Frightening home video of Hurricane Rita's surge was taken Saturday by a resident in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. You can see the relentless invasion of water as it smashes into the home, engulfing all of its contents. These residents eventually fled to the attic and then used a shotgun to blast a hole in the roof to escape the rising water.

Just a few days ago there were scenes of desperation on Houston highways. Evacuees stuck for hours on clogged roadways. Different picture today. Traffic running more smoothly and people are coming home after Hurricane Rita. Many of those residents ignored a phased return plan. Our Bob Franken is in Houston with that part of the story.

So much for listening to government guidelines, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are the same people who listened on the way out and many of them were very unhappy about what that encountered with that massive, massive gridlock. So an awful lot of them just ignoring the orders, as you pointed out. But things seem to be going okay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN, (voice over): As he surveyed the web of highways from overhead, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt was well aware that thousands of residents were just ignoring the three-day phased return plan and coming back when they felt like it, which meant right away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's nothing like it was the other day.

FRANKEN: Not as bad, but there were often bottlenecks and slow- moving cars, tediously crawling back to the city they so hastily left to escape the ferocious storm that never really came to Houston. Gasoline was still a big problem. There wasn't enough of it. But resourceful drivers were finding some, sometimes enduring the lines they could have avoided.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are lined up to get into one service station and less than a quarter of a mile down the street there's no line at all.

FRANKEN: But the mayor of Houston acknowledged that more people are needed for the smooth flow of that precious petroleum.

MAYOR BILL WHITE, HOUSTON: If you work in a gasoline station, if you work in a convenience store, if you're a jobber, if you work in a grocery store, then, you know, you need to show up for work.

FRANKEN: Electric utilities are scrambling to restore power that will still be out for several hundred thousand of those returning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Even with the problems remaining, Daryn, people here are struggling to avoid but (ph) they say that they avoided a bullet here. But, of course, they did.

Daryn.

KAGAN: And what about lessons learned in getting everybody out of town? Too soon to look at that, Bob? FRANKEN: Well, it's already started. There's going to be an awful lot of after-action reports, they call them. There are complaints that they didn't really initiated the contra flow program more quickly. Complaints that they acted too early. All of that is going to be involved in, how shall we say it, the tweaking.

KAGAN: All right. We'll be looking for that. Bob Franken in Houston. Thank you.

And we head to the east and New Orleans where some residents are being allowed to return to their homes and businesses this morning. As you can see, many are taking advantage of that opportunity. Mayor Ray Nagin says business owners and folks from the Algiers neighborhood can return, as he is saying, to help rebuild the city. Our Mary Snow is in New Orleans with the latest.

Mary, good morning.

MARY SNOW: Good morning, Daryn.

And the city of New Orleans is saying that be prepared for traffic jams on the highways as people make their way in. Now the mayor, Ray Nagin, is telling residence of Algiers section that they can start coming back to their homes. He is warning them, though, to be prepared. To have another place to go in case they can't live in their homes.

He also is allowing people in, business owners in, to the French Quarter, to the Uptown District and the Central Business District here in the east bank of New Orleans. Now this was a plan that had been started last week and then had to be abruptly suspended because Hurricane Rita was making her way toward the region. So the mayor is anxious to get the city up and running.

But people are being told, this is not ordinary circumstance. To enter at your own risk. The mayor's office is also advising the elderly to not come back. Families to keep children away from the area. And, also, some of the risks that still remind here such as standing water.

Also there is a curfew in place. This is the first day of this new re-entry program that's being restarted and the mayor's office is saying they're going to take a look at this, how it goes, to assess when other people can start moving back into New Orleans. Now this, of course, is after the latest big setback to New Orleans which triggered new flooding on Friday when rain and wind hit this city.

We saw two parts of the Industrial Canal Levee that had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina, water over topping it, and crews have been working throughout the weekend after some areas in the city became re-flooded. Particularly the lower ninth ward. That's the biggest area of concern. The Army Corps of Engineers says it's dropped about 400 sandbags so far. They expect that the water should be pumped out by the end of the week.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Mary Snow live in New Orleans. Thank you.

Looking at the big picture with the state of Louisiana. The governor, Kathleen Blanco, says fishing villages in coastal Cameron Parish have been virtually erased from the map. Her comments came after a helicopter tour. The state most heavily pounded by Hurricane Rita. She also says that Louisiana's congressional delegation will seek more than $31 billion to rebuild and repair the state's infrastructure and improve the levee system in and around New Orleans.

Some eyebrows are being raised over the first round of government bills for private businesses dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "The New York Times" is crunching some of the numbers involved in the $1.5 billion worth of contracts that have been signed so far by FEMA. The newspaper says more than 80 percent were awarded without bids or with limited competition and that congressional investigators are looking at $568 million of work given to a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's governor.

Ahead on CNN LIVE TODAY, Rita's impact on the oil rigs and how the storm's lesser than expected blow could actually save you some money.

President Bush is to be briefed on the nation's energy and oil supplies in just a few minutes. A report from the White House coming up next.

Plus this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE: Rita was a girl compared to a big lady, mean lady, named Katrina.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAGAN: Only on CNN. The man in charge of military response in New Orleans gets a first- hand look at the devastation caused by Rita. CNN goes along for the ride.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: I want to show you these pictures we're just getting in. This is Cameron Parish, Louisiana. One or the hardest hit areas by Hurricane Rita. Keep in mind, most of the homes and businesses destroyed by water from Hurricane Rita. As many as 10,000 the homes of 10,000 people destroyed and sitting under about 15 feet of water.

The remnants of Hurricane Rita spinning off as many as three or four tornadoes in Alabama's Tuscaloosa County. At least two people were injured. Neither of them seriously. But the twisters and their accompanying storms did leave a trail of damage. Winds peeled off mobile home siding and roofs and snapped trees in half. More than a dozen twisters spun across Mississippi over the weekend including one that injured four people on the campus of Mississippi State University in Starkville. Another in Humphreys County is blamed for one death.

And as we go to Chad Myers, I understand more word of tornadoes this morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, north of Pensacola, Daryn. Escambia, Santa Rosa County, Pensacola right here. This is the Gulf of Mexico. This storm right there is spinning tornado warning on that storm. It is sliding to the southeast at about 15 miles per hour. It will miss Pensacola but there are other storms and that area that could spin as well.

It's raining across the northeast. This is all the moisture from Rita. This is still here from Rita. Still raining in Pittsburgh and State College, all the way up to Williamsport, down through Charleston, almost to Charlotte right now.

Been raining most of the morning in Atlanta. At least on and off. The airports now very slow around Atlanta and down to the south. And here's where that area of tornado warning area was here, Escambia and Santa Rosa County, down there, across parts of Florida.

Here's the rain. There could even be some severe weather. Thinking wind damage, not tornadoes. But New York City, Philadelphia, D.C., all of the way down even into Richmond, Virginia, and Hampton Roads.

The moisture from Rita is in place and a cold front is going to try to come through and push it out of the way. Well, kind of to many elements in there all at one time and some of those storms could be strong in the heat of the day, 2:00 or 3:00 this afternoon. If you look up and see a big black cloud, make sure you get inside. Could be some wind damage there.

KAGAN: All right, Chad, thank you for that.

OK, let's talk about the impact clear across the country. President Bush assessing the impact of Hurricane Rita on the nation's oil and gas industry. He's getting a briefing this hour at the Energy Department and that's where we find well, our Dana Bash is at the White House to tell us more about that.

Good morning.

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

An initial word from the Texas governor is that the impact on oil refineries wasn't that bad or certainly could have been a lot worse. We heard from the mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, this morning saying that one of the major refineries there is closed and may not open for three to five weeks. Well, the president is going to get a briefing, we're told, on all of that. And also, perhaps, the issue with regards to energy that could have the most affect on him politically. Really already is having the most evident on him politically, and that is gas prices sky high gas prices that are affecting Americans all across the country.

And, Daryn, this briefing today comes on the heels of three days worth of briefings across the area, meeting with military leaders, meeting with state and local officials, trying to get what the White House hopes is a second chance to look as if he is on top of the hurricane response to Rita in a way that he wasn't to Katrina.

Now you see a picture of the president in a military briefing. This is something that is quite unusual. The White House invited cameras to stay for quite a long time to listen to military leaders talk about some of the problems with Katrina and talk about the need for what a few generals called a national response to coordinate the kind of response to a major catastrophe like Katrina and perhaps Rita. As for the president, he used the opportunity to push the idea of getting the Pentagon a larger role in responding to natural disasters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is there an actual disaster which of a certain size that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? And that's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now this is an idea that the president first brought up in his national address more than a week ago. This morning the White House is describing the idea as a sort of trigger to help determine exactly when the U.S. military should be majorly involved, really take over response to a major catastrophe. It would be a major change and certainly something that some of the president's fellow conservatives are not very happy about. They say it is trampling on state's rights.

Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Dana Bash, live at the White House. Thank you.

And, of course, CNN will have live coverage of the president's statement on energy supplies. That's expected about a half hour from now.

If you or someone you know is among the thousands displaced by Hurricane Katrina or Rita, listen up. Gerri Willis tells you what you need to know while waiting out the storm.

Gerri, good morning.

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Daryn. Good to see you.

If you're caught in limbo, we'll show you how to get help fast. Five tips is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's go ahead and check out the markets. They've been open just under an hour. There's a bit of a relief that Hurricane Rita wasn't as bad as could have been anticipated. So the Dow and stocks are rallying. The Dow is up 75 points. The Nasdaq also in positive territory. It is up 12. If you're counting, it is the second time in less than a month that a hurricane has put thousands and thousand of people into limbo. So a lot of people are wondering, what can evacuees do now as they wait to rebuild their lives and their homes? Here with her "Top Five Tips," our personal finance editor, Gerri Willis.

Gerri, good morning.

WILLIS: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, tip number one. If you're without money, the Red Cross supplies emergency money to people who need it. Dial 1-800-975-7585 to get help. Now what you'll get is what looks like an ATM card. You can get as much of $350 to over $1,500 in emergency money depending on the size of your family. FEMA has a similar program. You dial, 1-800- 621-FEMA. And getting money from one source doesn't preclude getting money from the other, by the way.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Let's talk about medication. What if you don't have enough and you don't have your prescription?

WILLIS: Well, I have to tell you that the major pharmacies are being a little lenient. They're letting people come in without a prescription. Maybe with just an empty bottle to get those prescriptions filled. Keep in mind, if you're not a regular customer of the store, if you don't have enough money, they may give you the drugs gratis. But again, it help if you have some kind of I.D. Keep in mind, if you need medical care, go to the Red Cross. If you can't find them, a local fire department or police station can help you out.

Daryn.

KAGAN: Some family and friends still having trouble getting in touch with each other, Gerri.

WILLIS: Absolutely. And, of course, the Red Cross has been running essentially a re-connection line. You want to go to katrinasafe.org online is where you can go. Even if you're a victim of Rita, it works for that as well. Or you can dial 1-877-LOVED1S to get in touch with family.

KAGAN: What about some of the small stuff that you want to make sure folks don't overlook, Gerri? WILLIS: Well, you want to think about redistricting your mail. We're starting to hear scattered reports of people having their personal information stolen in the wake of this disaster. You want to make sure that your mail is safe. You can have it forwarded from a remote location to wherever you are. Going to moversguide.usps.com to get information about that.

KAGAN: Also there's con artists out there trying to take advantage of people.

WILLIS: Believe it or not, people are posing as FEMA officials.

KAGAN: Oh, that's nice.

WILLIS: Yes. And suggest that if you only pay a small up front fee, they'll help you get some emergency money. Don't believe it. FEMA doesn't charge an application fee. If someone's asking you for money and saying they're from FEMA, they are not.

KAGAN: Red flag right there.

WILLIS: That's right.

KAGAN: Gerri, thank you. Good tips as always.

WILLIS: You're welcome.

KAGAN: Straight ahead this morning, the flood waters, nine feet deep in some parts. Several communities deep in the Louisiana bayou country literally under water. We're going to take you live to one of them up next.

Plus, should the Pentagon take a lead role in responding to natural disasters? President Bush is talking about that. He plans to take that question to Congress. More of that on CNN LIVE TODAY after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We are coming up on the half hour. I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening "Now in the News."

President Bush is getting a briefing on the nation's energy supply following Hurricane Rita and Katrina. After the briefing at the Energy Department, the president will deliver a statement. CNN will carry Mr. Bush's remark live about 25 minutes from now.

The U.S. military freed 500 Iraqi detainees from Abu Ghraib Prison today. The Iraqi government had requested a goodwill gesture ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The U.S. military says another 500 detainees will be released later this week. The U.S. says it's only releasing detainees who are not guilty of serious, violent crimes.

A number of groups against the war in Iraq will deliver the names of the dead to the White House next hour. The event marks the end of a weekend long anti-war mobilization in the nation's capital. Groups supporting the war held counter rallies at the same time.

Gas prices have dropped more than 20 cents over the past two weeks. The national average of a gallon of self-serve regular is $2.81. Those are the latest numbers from the Lundberg Survey. The drop is attributed to some supplies coming back online after Hurricane Katrina and a lower demand for gas due to earlier price hikes. The survey was taken before Hurricane Rita slammed into the Gulf this weekend.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com