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Mississippi Severe But Stabilizing; Lawmakers Criticize Cabinet Secretaries for Response; Mother Says Life in Shelter Horrible

Aired September 07, 2005 - 09:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Good morning. I'm Soledad O'Brien, live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Just south of here in New Orleans, another developing story this morning. The mayor says that anybody who refuses to leave the city will be removed by force. The military says they will not participate in any forced removals. We'll have a look at that live in New Orleans just ahead.

Much more money needed to pay for Katrina. The president's asking for between $30 and $50 billion.

And a developing story off the coast of Florida. Tropical Storm Ophelia forms in the Atlantic. She could get stronger. A look at that on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Good morning. How are you?

Good morning and welcome, everybody and thank you. Nice to see you. This is breakfast. Things are just getting underway here at this Red Cross shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge now has become the largest city in Louisiana. That's because of the influx not only of some of the evacuees and also because of the rescue workers and all of the folks who come in to help with some of the infrastructural repairs that need to be done, as well.

As you can see, this essentially city to some 5,000 people is just beginning breakfast. And 10 percent of the population are children, and we've seen a number of kids come through to start picking out what they're going to have for breakfast this morning.

In just a few minutes we're going to talk to a mom who's got her kids here and talk about the situation that they're in and how they're dealing with not only the logistics of trying to get help, but also the psychological struggles to recover, as well -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Lots to consider there. Thank you, Soledad. We'll be back with you in just a moment.

Let's start with a look at the mission critical news, as well. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says anyone who refuses to leave the city risks being taken away by force. About 10,000 are thought to be still in the city of New Orleans.

Lieutenant General Russell Honore said his troops will not force any residents to leave, and they will continue to provide them food and water.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is echoing the mayor's call to get out of the city. Dr. Julie Gerberding says that, while there is no outbreak of disease, the water is a hazard, of course. She says most of the danger right now would come from common infections. She says under no circumstances should people drink that water.

And the death toll in Louisiana is up to 83, but Mayor Nagin says it could reach as high in 10,000 in New Orleans alone when all is said and done.

In Mississippi the death toll is rising. Right now it's officially 196. Authorities say it could take days, if not weeks before the search ends. Meanwhile, tens of thousands are homeless, even more are without power still.

Chris Huntington live in Biloxi. Chris, bring us up-to-date on the relief effort there.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, if the situation in New Orleans is critical, the situation here in coastal Mississippi is severe, but stabilizing. Probably the best news for the folks here, fresh, hot food.

Right here I'm at a food distribution center being run by the Salvation Army in what's called the Point section of Biloxi. This is literally and figuratively on the other side of the tracks in Biloxi, a modest income neighborhood being served here mightily by the Salvation Army in conjunction with, of all things, Papa John's Pizza. And they're turning out, if you can believe it, a breakfast pizza.

Actually, between the Salvation Army cook facilities here and this Papa John's Pizza truck, they are going to serve about 8,000 to 10,000 meals here each day.

The Salvation Army, ready to ramp up a clothing distribution center in the next couple of days right near here. The folks here need all kinds of help, particularly just house to house cleanup. You've got to remember that most of the houses along -- that are still standing, so to speak, along coastal Mississippi were drenched and are almost uninhabitable in many cases.

The military presence here is mighty along coastal Mississippi. That's great news for security. That is good news for heavy duty cleanup. It is creating a bit of a logjam, though, because checkpoints have increased to virtually every intersection. There are many places that are now off limits to civilian traffic.

So Miles, a curious flip sign to the massive relief effort and influx of law enforcement and military is that it's getting increasingly difficult for the locals to move around and get to their homes.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it makes you wonder, Chris, with the people required to man all those checkpoints, they could be doing something much more worthwhile.

HUNTINGTON: Miles, that's an excellent point. We have spoken on a daily basis to the law enforcement that are coming from all over the country, and there's two questions we ask them: who do you report to and what is your mission going to be? And the answer invariably is, "Well, we're not quite sure, but we'll find out."

And what happens is, because they're law enforcement people, they are almost invariably put into law enforcement positions. Frankly, there's too much security here. The place is secure. Looting is not really happening; it's scavenging, essentially. You've got redundant officers at checkpoints.

What they really need is house to house cleanup crews, the kind of work, frankly, that the Salvation Army is doing.

M. O'BRIEN: If they need law enforcement, I think probably New Orleans is a better place for them to be, probably. All right. Chris Huntington, thanks very much.

President Bush and his cabinet are on the hot seat this morning after receiving failing grades from Democrats and Republicans over their response to Hurricane Katrina.

Ed Henry on Capitol Hill. What's the latest on the political fallout, Ed?

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Miles.

That's right. Late last night in the House chamber there was a closed-door meeting. And it was a pretty contentious meeting as one Democrat and Republican after another ripped into the Bush administration, these cabinet secretaries, saying that they had not done enough in their initial response to Katrina.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff raised some eyebrows in this meeting by saying that he believes that the situation at the Superdome was not as bad as it seemed, despite those gripping television images that suggested the refugees were living in squalor.

That raised some eyebrows in addition to the fact that some of the other cabinet secretaries in this meeting gave rosy reports about how they feel the government did a very good job in the early days and now.

That sparked blistering criticism from even some Republicans. We're told one Republican lawmaker stood up and said he believes that the cabinet secretary deserved failing grades.

And Republicans know here on the Hill that this is a politically explosive issue, that the federal government, which is run entirely by Republicans, was asleep at the switch and had a slow response at first.

That's why we're seeing a pretty strong pushback. President Bush himself yesterday saying that he believes we should not be engaging in the blame game. Last night House Majority Leader Tom DeLay came out of this meeting with the cabinet secretaries to say that if anything went wrong, he thinks that maybe the blame lies with state and local officials in Louisiana.

But this morning right here on "AMERICAN MORNING," Senator Hillary Clinton called for an independent commission to investigate all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: I thank that we sort of lost track of the fact that this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country. This is not a game. This has to be a serious inquiry that people have confidence in that will help us understand what did go wrong. The sooner we know that the better. We have no idea what Mother Nature or, heaven forbid, you know, the terrorists have in store for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: On that very point about terrorists, a bipartisan team of Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman and Republican Senator Susan Collins, who oversee the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, said yesterday that four year -- almost four years after 9/11 this was the first big test for the new Department of Homeland Security and, in the estimation of these senators, they feel the department failed -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Ed Henry on Capitol Hill, thank you very much.

Let's take a look at some live pictures now coming into us. This is courtesy of that group Helinet that we introduced you to yesterday as they make their, I guess, morning rounds at this point, over the city of New Orleans.

You're looking at the industrial canal. You see the breach right there, right in the foreground there. That breach has not yet been repaired, although you see some effort there to do just that.

We focus so much on the 17th Street Canal that I think we've overlooked this other canal. There are other breaches. And so that work continues. Water still flowing in the wrong direction, if you will, there, while in other places the pumping continues after that other canal was breached.

So you can take a look at, you know, essentially what they're doing there is they put down a series of sandbags, huge sandbags, and then they put some of that gravel, if you will, on top of there to sort of firm things up.

But as you can see, there's a breach right in there. They've still got a little bit of effort to go before they're going to get that breach fixed. And so as a result, water still flowing there. There's another one in there. I think you can see it right in there.

So the water is still flowing into the city of New Orleans in some places, going out in others. At the bottom of the ledger this morning, we're told 60 percent of the city remains under water.

And of course, there's a lot of talk about whether people who remain behind will be leaving. The mayor would like to forcibly remove them. The general in charge of all this says we're not going to do it.

Let's go to Soledad, who's in Baton Rouge, where a lot of folks are in a shelter trying to put their lives back together.

Soledad, good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: That's right, Miles. Good morning to you, this is a Red Cross shelter right in Baton Rouge; 4,500 people overnighted here last night.

And as you talked about some of the people who have been refusing to leave, for the people here they were ready to get out and this is where they ended up.

We want to get to Keonti Smith. She is living at the shelter temporarily with her daughter, whose name is Keondra (ph). She's 1 year old.

And I have to ask you about what it's like to be here when you have a small child. Under the best of circumstances that could be really trying. How hard has it been for you while you juggle a little girl?

KEONTI SMITH, EVACUEE: Well, it's not that hard because they're giving you a lot of help. And -- but it's kind of hard because you have lice going around. I have to really watch her. We have her -- they have rapists everywhere...

S. O'BRIEN: They have what everywhere?

SMITH: Rapists, murderers.

S. O'BRIEN: You mean, they haven't really been able to track, necessarily, who's come into the shelter?

SMITH: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: So you must really keep your eyes open.

You were in your home in Algiers, which started to flood and then you got out and went to the Holiday Inn in Gretna (ph). What was that like?

SMITH: That was horrible. We had to take a bath with swimming pool water, which was green. We didn't have any water. Didn't have any food. They had some management living in the hotel. They were really nice. They gave us water, food. And after that we just had to leave.

S. O'BRIEN: You left and you ended up here.

SMITH: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: What are your concerns? You talked about not really knowing who is sleeping right next to you, kind of technically.

SMITH: It's horrible. I really don't like it. This is my first time in the shelter. It's horrible.

S. O'BRIEN: Why is it horrible?

SMITH: I mean, my baby she wants to run around and play, but she can't because I really want to watch her and -- like you said you really don't know who's laying next to you or who that person could be.

S. O'BRIEN: You survived a lot.

SMITH: Yes. I thank God for that. I pray.

S. O'BRIEN: That you have a chance to talk to people here? Are you taking -- they talk about how they're offering counseling. Are you taking advantage of that stuff or are you not ready for that?

SMITH: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Has that been helpful at all?

SMITH: Yes, very helpful. Very.

S. O'BRIEN: I know you have a cousin, a young cousin who is still missing.

SMITH: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: What's her name?

SMITH: Jowanna Smith (ph). If she can find us, we're here in Baton Rouge at the shelter. We're OK. We just want to know where you are.

S. O'BRIEN: How is it that...

SMITH: Her mom is really worried; she cries every day. Jowanna (ph), please call us. Please, Jowanna (ph).

S. O'BRIEN: You're holding it together very nicely, and I know you're doing that because of your daughter. You sort of have to. How long do you think you're going to be here?

SMITH: We're trying to leave. We're trying to go to Michigan (ph).

S. O'BRIEN: Why can't you?

SMITH: We have no way.

S. O'BRIEN: You don't have a ride? You don't have -- What's in Memphis? Any relatives?

SMITH: My mother's boyfriend, he wants us to come up there. He doesn't have enough people there to come get us. There's 14 of us here.

S. O'BRIEN: If 14 of you could get to Memphis, could he put you all up?

SMITH: Yes. He's trying to put us in our apartment before we get our housing and food stamps and stuff.

S. O'BRIEN: Here, have they offered you aid from FEMA and any of the organizations?

SMITH: Yes, they did.

S. O'BRIEN: So can any of those organizations help you out with financial aid or a vehicle or a ride to Memphis?

SMITH: Well, yes. They're flying people to, like, to Texas and to Ohio, but no one said Memphis yet. When they say Memphis, when someone says Memphis, we're gone. We're going to go.

S. O'BRIEN: Overall, how's it going for you?

SMITH: It's OK. At first we were worried, but it's all right.

S. O'BRIEN: It's good enough for now?

SMITH: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Good luck to you. Thanks for talking with us.

And I know she's been so nicely behaved, but I'll bet you, she wants to run around a little bit. I'll tell you, it's tough anyway with a 1-year-old, as you well know, under the best of circumstances, but to be in a shelter that's even a nicely-run shelter, that is a tough thing.

Good luck to you, and we'll get -- we'll get your cousin's name out, put it on our web site, because we're doing a registry and trying to match people up with their family members, as well.

SMITH: Thank you so much.

S. O'BRIEN: Our pleasure. Thanks for talking to us -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much, Soledad.

Let's go back to live pictures now. This is the same tour we were telling you about. And we're flying over that industrial canal still. And what we're seeing, this is -- this is essentially, here, a big pumping station.

You know, we've been talking about the levees. It's not just the levees that have kept New Orleans dry over the years. It's a series of pumps. I think there's one particular station has in excess of 140 pumps. And a lot of them, of course, are not working, because they don't have power for one thing.

And in this case, as we swing around here you're going to see another problem that affects this one. Of course, you can get generators to try to get these things going, get the pumping going, but on top of that what you have is, you have a couple of barges right in that area, right down there -- just got a glimpse of them -- that were up ended and brought in by Katrina on top of some of the infrastructure at that pumping station.

And until they can be removed, that pumping station will not be able to operate. And so there's the dual effort of plugging the levees, and you see -- remember, we were showing you, this is the industrial canal right here. This is the industrial canal.

And there you see some of those breach areas that we were showing you about. And there you see the evidence of that work. We're just seeing this from the other side.

And there you see the inundated neighborhoods on the other side. Water is still moving in the wrong direction. And we're moving kind of west to east right now in the Helinet helicopter as we sort of peek over their shoulder and as they give us an assessment of New Orleans on this day, nine days now since Katrina blew through on Monday morning a week ago.

And there you see a nice wide shot of the city. I say nice. There's nothing nice about what's there right now, unfortunately.

As you can see, much of that neighborhood there remains under water, and 60 percent of the city remains that way, 40 percent not. That's an improvement over what we've been saying before. That doesn't mean a lot to somebody who owns that house right there, though.

So it's going to be a long while before they'll ever be able to get back and take a look at their belongings. Of course, we know there are some people that are holding out in those locations. And that's a story we're tracking, as well, this morning.

Still to come on the program, Katrina not only left people homeless. It certainly left them jobless. We'll look at what one state is doing to try to help them find some work. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: San Antonio, Texas, has opened its arms and its heart to candidate's homeless. Some 10,000 hurricane evacuees from New Orleans have made their way to the Alamo City.

Our Kelly Wallace spent some time in one of San Antonio's shelters and heard some of their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's me.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name is Misteria (ph), and her life right now is exactly that, a mystery. We know she's 4 years old and what she wants to be when she grows up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a doctor and a caterpillar.

WALLACE (on camera): And a doctor and a caterpillar?

(voice-over) But we don't know much else. She's here in San Antonio without her parents.

RUTH JONES MCCLENDON, TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: We don't know where her mother is. We don't know where her father is. We don't know where her grandmother or grandfather. We just need to get the message out.

WALLACE: The hope is someone will see her smiling face and reunite her with her family. Misteria's (ph) story leads us to another. Rita Ward is a Katrina evacuee who decided she had to volunteer.

RITA WARD, EVACUEE TURNED VOLUNTEER: I personally feel like I was one of the lucky ones. I've been very blessed to have family and homes to go to and all, and I know that there are so many people that don't.

WALLACE: This former Air Force base in San Antonio is now sheltering thousands of Katrina's homeless, with volunteers trying to help people find jobs, new homes and schools for the kids.

Trenell Hilton is a mother of five trying to register her kids for school and move her family forward after three harrowing days at the New Orleans Superdome.

TRENELL HILTON, EVACUATED FROM SUPERDOME: People was dying, literally in our face you could see the people dying.

WALLACE: She says she'll never go back to New Orleans. Neither will Timothy Pittman.

TIMOTHY PITTMAN, EVACUEE: Ma'am, I'm not going back that way, because it's just -- you see the images on TV and they stick in your mind.

WALLACE: When Pittman fled New Orleans he brought his Bible with him. He never leaves the house without it. He thanks God for reuniting him, just moments before we met, with his daughter.

(on camera) What was going through your mind when you saw her beautiful face?

PITTMAN: Well, I think yesterday you told me to not cry. I said, so I'm not going to do that, but I did it anyway. WALLACE (voice-over): Tyler Pittman was beginning her first day of basic training at a nearby Air Force base. She had no idea her dad was here.

TYLER PITTMAN, REUNITED WITH FATHER: I was shocked. I was happy. It was all a lot of emotions. I said I wasn't going to cry, but you know how that is.

WALLACE: So many stories. Thankfully, some already have happy endings. Hopefully, others will, too.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, San Antonio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come in the program, we'll go back to Soledad in Baton Rouge. She'll look at what's being done to help the thousands of evacuees who have sought shelter there. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Live pictures once again. The city of New Orleans, there you see a Coast Guard crew in their Sikorsky helicopters as they continue the effort of trying to see if anybody wants to be rescued.

What -- the basic gist of it this morning, however, is that most people who are on their porches or in their homes in New Orleans would prefer not to be rescued. And that's kind of an unfolding story that we're tracking right now, because the mayor on the one hand has said no. They're coming out if we have to take them out.

The general who is in charge of that part of the world in many respects right now said, "I don't know if we're going to do that." So there's an interesting little story developing.

You know, Soledad, what it's boiled down to here is you've got basically two groups of people. You've got people who are staying in their house for whatever reason. One of the big reasons is their pets, of all things, but people love their dogs. I understand that.

And then on the other side, you have the people that are there in those shelters, and to a person I haven't heard a single one yet say they want to go back to New Orleans. Have you?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes. I think people here who have gotten out understand how devastated New Orleans is. And for the folks who are still there, we saw when we did a flyover with the Coast Guard a number of people wave us off and say. "We're fine. We're OK."

Some of the people said focus your resources on the people who need to be rescued and cut out of homes, because they're fine. Some people, as you mentioned, the pets or some of the belongings.

I mean, to a large degree, this is all you have left and if you leave, you leave it behind. You're going to be -- you're going to have absolutely nothing. So, I mean, it is a tough situation.

I think there are lots of people who would love to go back to New Orleans. But the question is really what's New Orleans going to look like?

You know, and even more heartbreaking than that, is we have lots of stories of people who have lost people. And here they're trying to just coordinate efforts to find moms and dads and daughters and sons and cousins and bring all these people together and then figure out where they go next as a family. It's a really -- it's a really tough thing.

M. O'BRIEN: You know, another threat that has gone through the program this morning is this sense of volunteerism. You know, you introduced us to that doctor just got on a plane and came there. And we saw those college students that got the car and drove to New Orleans and tried to do something.

You know, a lot of people at home would probably like to do that or like to do something like that, but as a practical matter cannot. What should they do?

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, well, you know, I mean, the truth is we have -- you'll meet in just a moments a psychiatric nurse who came in from Bloomington, Indiana, to help out. And she has a skill, and she knows what she can do here with the Red Cross.

People who just want to show up are not that helpful. And the best thing they can do, honestly, is send some money to whatever charity they want that's a reputable charity. That is really the best way to help.

And I think everybody has to kind of figure out how they can be most productive and most helpful, and that will really help the people who need it the most -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Good points. All right. Check back in with you in just a few moments. Soledad in Baton Rouge at that shelter, which is heavily populated yet running very smoothly by all accounts there.

Still to come, what's being done to find work for the thousands of evacuees left jobless and homeless by Katrina? Talk about a one- two punch. We'll take a closer look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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