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American Morning

Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath

Aired August 30, 2005 - 9:01   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: With a new day, an enormous task ahead for rescuers. They are searching for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans 80 percent under water, many people still trapped in their homes.
The water there still rising. There are reports of a 200-foot breach in a levee by Lake Pontchartrain. We're live in New Orleans just ahead.

In Mississippi, the strongest winds of the storm obliterate homes. A massive storm surge then washes them away. Many are dead, many are missing. We're live in Biloxi.

And in Alabama, some of the worst flooding in 90 years. An enormous emergency in three states to tell you about on this AMERICAN MORNING.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome. Live from Biloxi, Mississippi, I'm Miles O'Brien.

I'm standing in front of the parking deck for the Beau Rivage Casino and resort. Look at that tree. It kind of looks like a sandbag tree today. Almost mocking efforts by people here to try to stem the tide of Katrina. But when Katrina came here, there wasn't a sandbag capable of stopping it.

Twenty-five foot storm surge. We have gotten some pictures earlier in the day from someone who was on that parking lot the whole time. Truly a dramatic scene.

The mayor of Biloxi calling it "our tsunami." And when you look at the damage and when you look at those pictures, it does seem apt. A terrible toll here.

Mississippi in total, at least 54 dead. Thirty people alone in one apartment complex just down the beach here which collapsed in the midst of that terrible surge and in the midst of those high winds.

We've been talking to residents as they've been filtering their way back to see what's left of their homes this morning. And what everybody remembers is 1969, Hurricane Camille, which itself caused in excess of 250 deaths in total.

People who were here then and who were here yesterday say this is much worse than Camille. So, quite literally, a new high watermark for the Gulf and a high watermark we will all be talking about for quite some time to come -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: A high watermark and devastation.

A horrible scene as well in New Orleans to tell you about, Miles. An important development overnight as well.

A levee that was holding back water from Lake Pontchartrain failed. It's dumping water now into the downtown and French Quarter areas. There is said to be a crack that's about two blocks long. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says about 80 percent of the city is underwater. It's 20 feet deep in some areas.

No deaths have been officially confirmed yet in Louisiana, but witnesses say they have seen bodies floating by. The governor says, "We believe we've lost some lives." The governor is also urging those who evacuated the city to stay put, saying it is too dangerous to come home.

Nearly 800,000 customers are without power in the state of Louisiana. It's unclear just how many people are still trapped inside their flooded homes.

Let's get right to Adaora Udoji. She's in New Orleans, near the Interstate 10 overpass in the Ninth Ward, and that's where rescue operations have really been under way since first light.

Adaora, what's going on?

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

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 homes.

You're right, we're just north of downtown New Orleans. And we are looking here at rescue workers who have been actually working steadfastly overnight because this entire area is completely flooded.

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 off of this pier, 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 priority. They were taken away and brought to a facility where they can be taken -- 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 in a walker. We've seen entire families, Soledad, 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 oldest victim we've heard so far, was a 97-year-old woman. So they are solely 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, that'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 -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. I'm sure they're going to start getting some numbers, too.

You know, you see that woman, Adaora, with a walker and you have to -- how did she spend the night? I mean, was she on the roof of a house? I mean, you have to imagine how she -- what she was rescued from because, some people are spending the night, have spent the night in terrible, terrible conditions.

We've heard reports of just terrified people just trying to survive until first light so they can get plucked off their roof. Really horrible. Adaora, we'll check back in with you in just a little bit.

Following Katrina's path this morning. Let's take a look at the very latest in Alabama.

Governor Bob Riley declaring a state of emergency, with southwest parts of the state designated now as federal disaster areas. Two storm-related deaths have been confirmed in that state, 345,000 people are without electricity in and around Mobile this morning. And Mobile is experiencing the worse flooding to hit that city in 90 years.

CNN's Ted Rowlands is live for us this morning in downtown Mobile.

Ted, good morning.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning again, Soledad.

Katrina has left a mess for Mobile to clean up. And they have begun that process of assessing the damage and then assessing what needs to be done here to clean up.

They're still without power in this city, and they expect to be without power for the next few days, possibly even a week. There are downed power lines, there are downed trees everywhere in the city, and there is flooding in the downtown area.

That said, they were expecting a 20-foot surge into the city. That did not happen. It was less than that. And for that reason, the loss of life here has been nonexistent, and they are very appreciative of that, the folks here in Alabama, specifically in Mobile.

They do plan to assess their damage here, and they also say that they are looking west. They plan to help out their neighbor states in Mississippi and in Louisiana once they have their ducks in a row here. They say there's a lot of concern for the loss of life that they expect coming out of those two states in the next few days. And the people here are very appreciative that, while they have suffered massive damage in terms of property loss, they have not suffered the loss of lives that the other two states have suffered and are expected to suffer as the dust settles and some of these other communitying are explored throughout the day today -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ted Rowlands for us. Ted, thanks.

Mississippi officials say an estimated 55 people are dead in that state. Thirty thought to have been killed in one Biloxi apartment complex alone. The storm surge described as a wall of water 25 feet deep.

Streets and homes flooded as far as six miles inland. The beach highway buried. The Biloxi mayor, A.J. Holloway, says, "This is our tsunami."

Miles O'Brien is in Biloxi. We're going to check in with him in just a few moments. Let's get to Chad Myers, though, first.

Chad, just devastated there. And, you know, it's interesting. We haven't heard a lot of details about those 30 people in the apartment complex killed, but one has to assume since they were on the beach it was the storm surge that took out that apartment.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. This is the first real storm that we had that we could say there was a significant storm surge since Camille. And isn't it ironic that they both hit in the same place, really?

We haven't heard any word out of Bay St. Louis, haven't heard any word out of Slidell. Those two towns extremely damaged.

Now, we talk about how New Orleans got off easy, and it really did. You know, people are emailing me saying, "How can you say that? Look at the damage."

Yes, but you know what? This town would have been wiped out. Had that storm been 40 miles farther to the west, New Orleans would have been a disaster area. Not like it isn't already, but it would have even been worse.

The problem right now with New Orleans is that broken levee. That is just going to be the disaster of the day. We're going to be covering that for days, maybe months. It's going to take a long time to get that water out.

Without that levee break, New Orleans fared pretty well. But now, oh boy, is it going downhill for those folks there as well.

Here's your track all the way from just about Memphis now, east of Memphis by about 50 miles. And it tracks right on up, even up to Quebec by Thursday morning.

The big story today will be the amount of rainfall and the potential for severe weather. We already have two tornado watches posted here. It's hard to see, but there's one over Atlanta, another over Charlotte. And the thunder showers and thunderstorms are already popping up.

Some of those storms will begin to spin. The ones that spun yesterday, at least seven of them, had tornadoes. But there were almost 200 tornado warnings. So your alarm may be going off an awful lot if you live in that area today if you have one of those weather radios.

Rain showers extend all the way to Boston, all the way to Providence, in New York, and right into Pennsylvania, and as far west as Cincinnati, to Louisville, and even farther south than that, down into about Nashville. There's the western side of the circulation. It's not really an eye anymore, but the circulation, western side here, eastern side here. Winds in Nashville gusting to 40. That's about the highest wind gust that I can find right now, is about 40 miles per hour, even though the latest hurricane center has it to a maximum of 50.

I suspect as soon as the next update comes out in a couple of hours, we'll have that down to maybe even a tropical depression -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Chad, can I ask you a quick question? You know, back to New Orleans and this levee...

MYERS: yes?

S. O'BRIEN: ... you can't fix the levee until the water's lower. The water won't get lower. I mean, how are they -- how's it going to work?

MYERS: Well, obviously, they could take a barge, and they could put a barge or something in the canal itself to stop the water from Lake Pontchartrain from getting into the canal in the first place. Then they could take any type of debris that they could find and dump it in there.

You know, drive on top of the levee, dump more stuff into that breach that it's missing, the dirt where it was. But the only way to stop that is to stop the water from coming through at all.

Army Corps of Engineers at the scene right now. And I'm sure they're scratching their heads. They have some work to do to get this water stopped. S. O'BRIEN: I think you're right. I think it's going to be a long time before they can even figure out how to fix this breach.

MYERS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: I mean, you know, sort of -- that's kind of the big problem. All right, Chad. Thanks. Appreciate it.

MYERS: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's get back to Miles. He is in Biloxi, Mississippi, this morning, where they have had some devastating losses as well.

Miles, good morning again.

M. O'BRIEN: Good morning again, Soledad.

A little after 8:00 in the morning here. And people are streaming their way back. People who have made their way through the obstacle course, the gauntlet that is driving around anywhere in these Gulf states affected by Katrina and assessing the damage to their homes.

I'm joined by Harriet Leckich, who has lived here all her life, a home that was built in 1945, weathered Camille with no problem.

HARRIET LECKICH, BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI RESIDENT: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: And in this case, not such good news. What happened?

LECKICH: Well, we decided to stay with my brother, Bill Joackam (ph) on Howard Avenue. And the following morning we decided we would wait until the wind to die down. And then it didn't.

The storm seemed to be so much wider than anyone anticipated. And we'd finally, late the following afternoon, drove as far as we could close to our home, which is right off of the main gate of Keesler Air Force Base. Keesler had a great deal of damage, so I knew we were in trouble.

We did not have a home. Everything is gone.

M. O'BRIEN: It's all gone?

LECKICH: On Highway 90 and the beach, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Really? I mean, is it just flattened?

LECKICH: Flattened. We had five ancient oak trees, we had a beautiful magnolia tree. No sign of them.

There's no sign of our car that was in the driveway. And it's just phenomenal because nothing was recognizable. The water line was so far back, and there were cars that had been pushed into the sea wall. There was an airplane from Keesler that was almost in the railroad.

M. O'BRIEN: What -- what went through your mind when you saw that? That had to be just a crushing moment.

LECKICH: Well, actually, because I am a deep Christian, I thought, at least we are alive. That's the important thing. And in this part of the world we are very valiant people and we do endure.

So we will just continue to move forward from this experience. That's all you can say. There are so many people who lost not only their homes, but their lives. And we're still here.

M. O'BRIEN: Good perspective. Harriet Leckich...

LECKICH: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: ... we wish you well on the rebuild.

LECKICH: Thank you so much.

M. O'BRIEN: Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, live from Biloxi, Mississippi, one of three states affected in so many ways by Hurricane Katrina yesterday. This is a story that will go on really for many, many years. They're just beginning to assess the damage, financial, the cost in lives, and really the ongoing rescue operations, which in particular in New Orleans are under way, as even today, while the water has receded here, it continues to rise there.

In the state of Alabama, Mobile in particular, the worse flooding since 1917. We just talked to the chief of police there who says, in many respects, it's the worse hurricane he can recall, exceeding Hurricane Frederic, which was a very damaging hurricane back in 1979.

Jim Walker is the head of the Alabama Homeland Security Agency. And he's spearheading efforts right now in that state to try to get a handle on this.

And Jim, what's your biggest concern, what's your biggest area of focus right now?

JIM WALKER, ALABAMA DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, you know, now we're beginning the onerous task of assessing the damage in our state and cleaning it up, which can be quite dangerous. I think in just a few minutes Governor Bob Riley and both of our United States senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, will board a helicopter to fly along the coastal areas of Alabama to do a more thorough assessment of exactly how Alabama was impacted by this very, very dangerous storm.

M. O'BRIEN: Tell us about any search and rescue operations you have under way right now.

WALKER: Well, the National Guard moved into the area last night. Over 450 along the coast. We're mobilizing others today.

Governor Riley has agreed to send over 800 of our National Guardsmen to assist our friends and neighbors in Mississippi and Louisiana. We do have water in the streets still in Mobile. We've got coastal roads that have been closed.

There is extensive damage in Alabama. We've got roads that are out, we've got a bridge that's out. But, you know, we've been very, very fortunate in that the loss of life in Alabama has been very, very minimal.

I think that Governor Bob Riley made a very wise and timely decision on Sunday to evacuate our citizens in Mobile County south of I-10 and over in the coastal areas. And this is our third or fourth show here in about the last year as far as hurricanes go. And our citizens heeded the call.

We were able to get them to higher ground. And we certainly mourn the loss of life and pray for our friends to the west in Mississippi and Louisiana.

M. O'BRIEN: How about -- you just alluded to some of the problems. Just getting to people right now is very difficult. Just traveling around.

We have found the logistics pretty onerous. It's a real challenge, isn't it?

WALKER: It's an enormous challenge. And it can be very, very dangerous.

And, in fact, Governor Riley has advised the citizens of Alabama to stay where you are for at least another day. If you are with family members, and if your circumstances allow such, that you ought to stay and not try to return to the coastal areas for another day or so. Let's give the experts an opportunity to get in and remove debris, to clear our roads, to try to restore power.

You know, throughout the state of Alabama now we have over 700,000 of our citizens without power -- without power. As the storm moved through along the Mississippi-Alabama border yesterday, and last night, we had several hundreds of thousands of our citizens lose power due to high winds.

And so it's still a very, very dangerous situation throughout the state, particularly along our coastal areas. And we would advise our citizens again, if you have a choice, don't return home for another day or so, and let's -- let's -- let's give our teams an opportunity to go in there and make the roads more accessible, to restore power, to try to get back to a sense of normalcy.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you, sir.

Jim Walker is head of the Alabama Homeland Security Agency.

We appreciate you joining us.

We'll be back with more AMERICAN MORNING in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Even if you weren't in the path of Hurricane Katrina, you're likely going to feel the effects of it at the gas pump. About a quarter of all U.S. oil is produced in the Gulf of Mexico. Crude futures were up a $1.18 to $68.45 this morning.

Joining us Peter Beutel. He's the president of Cameron Hanover, an energy risk firm in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Nice to see you, Peter. Thanks for talking with us this morning.

PETER BEUTEL, OIL ANALYST: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: I'm going to ask you the same question that we've been asking the search and rescue teams as well. How bad is it, economically speaking?

BEUTEL: For starters, we're going to see probably 15 cents at the pump. That's an extra $60 million a day out of consumers' pockets just for gasoline alone.

Heating oil prices have jumped dramatically. They've added about 19 cents. That's about another $100 over the course of a winter up here in the northeast per family.

So we've had some pretty big -- pretty big shocks from this.

S. O'BRIEN: Before Katrina rolled through, they stopped production, and the rigs. Seventy-five percent, I guess, of the platforms, and the rigs were shut down. Ninety-plus percent of production shut down so they could evacuate some of the workers off.

What percent of the capacity has been lost by destruction by the storm?

BEUTEL: Well , we don't know what has been destroyed. All we know is what's been shut in.

We've had about 13 percent of our refineries shut down as a precaution. And there are three or four right there in that area that took the brunt of it that just we, at this point, have no idea what's going on with them. We've actually had some good news from a couple in the general New Orleans area that have said that they're doing OK. But it's going to take a couple days before we know what was actually destroyed, what was shut down and can come back effectively.

S. O'BRIEN: What's the worst-case scenario, though? Let's say those three or four that are still sort of up for grabs at this point, let's say they're not working at full capacity. For those of us who are not in the area, how do we feel it? What does that mean for us?

BEUTEL: Well, we can't lose a single unit right now in the United States. Far less a full refinery.

Every refinery has several units. And last week we had, you know, like a fire or unscheduled downtime at a unit here and a unit there, and prices took off. So to have the potential loss of a couple refineries for a week, two weeks, a month, we just can't -- we just can't have that. We're going -- we're going to have some physical problems, shortage in various areas, if that happens, particularly in the areas serviced by those refineries that are right there along that Gulf Coast.

S. O'BRIEN: Does that mean that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be an option, is an option?

BEUTEL: Well, the president said yesterday he's willing to do it. Now, the next time is, the refiners go to the president and say, we would like to borrow some oil.

They borrow the oil and then they pledge to repay it at a later stage. But the problem isn't crude oil. The problem is turning the crude oil into gasoline, heating oil, diesel, jet fuel. These are the things that we really need the most right now.

S. O'BRIEN: Back to the refineries.

Overall, what do you think the impact of the economy is going to be? Or is it just too soon to tell?

BEUTEL: Well, this came at the very worse time, and it's adding insult to injury. Right now, the American consumer is paying $350 million a day more for gasoline than he and she paid a year ago, $500 million more than two years ago.

You throw in heating oil, diesel, asphalt, jet fuel, you're talking about close to $900 million or a billion dollars a day more than three years ago on energy. And I don't know. You know, you can't take a billion dollars out of consumers' pockets every single day without it showing up somewhere else as business that's lost.

S. O'BRIEN: It's going to have a huge impact then on the economy.

BEUTEL: I think so, you know.

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I think a lot of people agree with you on this one.

He's the president of Cameron Hanover, an oil analyst.

Thanks. Appreciate it.

BEUTEL: Thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, we'll have the latest on the massive flooding problem in New Orleans. The mayor says 80 percent of the city is under water. A major levee breach is making the situation worse. An update is ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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