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American Morning

Gulf Coast Moving Into Action as Hurricane Rita Gets Closer

Aired September 21, 2005 - 07:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And back to New Orleans. Dire predictions. If Rita turns to the north, the city is mostly dry now, but a heavy rainfall could spell some big trouble. This as city officials order everybody out again. We're live in New Orleans where the buses are ready to roll, on this AMERICAN MORNING.
Good morning. Welcome, everybody.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about Hurricane Rita, category three, on its way to category four. Seems an awful lot like Katrina.

S. O'BRIEN: It is very much deja vu all over again, so to speak.

Let's get right to it this morning. Three weeks after Katrina, in fact, the Gulf Coast getting ready for another major hurricane. Rita is getting stronger and stronger. CNN, of course, your hurricane headquarters.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: The Gulf Coast moving into action as Hurricane Rita gets closer, in fact. Mandatory evacuations beginning in Galveston County, in Texas. And at this hour, nursing homes are being emptied, schools are being closed. Phased evacuation of the city of Galveston begin tonight. They go through tomorrow.

Louisiana's Governor Kathleen Blanco says her state is so overwhelmed by the aftermath of Katrina, that she is asking for federal help to prepare for Rita. She's declared a state of emergency in southwestern parishes that could see strong rain and flooding from Hurricane Rita.

Now Rita passed through the Florida Keys without causing too much damage. There is a possibility, though, of tornadoes now. Warnings up are today in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties as well.

The mayor of Galveston, Texas declaring a state of emergency there. Galveston is just about 60 miles southeast of Houston. It's located on an island.

And we've got Deb Feyerick there reporting for us this morning. She's at a community center. Residents are boarding buses this morning, trying to get out of town.

Hey, Deb. Good morning.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Soledad.

Well, the mayor, city council, all of them focused really on just one thing, and that is getting everybody out of town as quickly as possible. That's why they're starting today, Wednesday, even though the storm is not expected to hit until Friday. You can see some of the buses here just over my shoulder, 80 buses. These are one-way buses. Once they leave, they are not coming back. The mayor has said if they need to bring more buses in, they will do so. So far, 900 people have reserved spots on these buses. But obviously a lot more can be accommodated.

Whether there's going to be a surge here at the center, later on in the morning, that's something that we're waiting for. A handful of people did make their way here overnight. Boards have been put up on the community shelter. This is something that's been going on all over the city, all over the island really. These folks wanted to make sure that they got on. One woman bringing her dog with her, a big case that she's going to be loading on that bus. That's a decision that officials made. They don't want to leave their pets behind. That's why they're saying, if you got a dog, if you've got a cat, bring it, but make sure you bring it in a container. How many of those containers got on the bus, that's something I'm sure they're going to work out later.

But the mayor yesterday urged in very, very strong terms, get out, get out now while you have the opportunity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MYR. LYDA ANN THOMAS, GALVESTON, TEXAS: The city of Galveston is calling for voluntary evacuation. That means that you may and should begin to leave the island now. You should be -- and I hope you have been listening to all of us -- and so you should be prepared to go, and it's time to get on the highway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, some folks who had been evacuated after Hurricane Katrina out of New Orleans and who were here in Texas, they also are being evacuated, about a thousand of them. They're being given one- way plane tickets to Arkansas. So they're getting farther and farther away from home, but at least they are safe. The police chief here in Galveston told his force, told all 165, that they are expected to ride out this hurricane, and they're expected to be here when the rain clears. So all of that in play as the storm makes its way -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, Deb. We can see lots of lessons learned clearly from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and those poor folks who are being evacuated again. What a nightmare scenario for them.

Deb Feyerick for us this morning. Deb, thanks. We'll check in with you again -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Frying pan to the fire situation.

New Orleans mayor isn't taking any chances either. The city, once again, ordering residents to get out.

Carol Costello live outside the convention center in New Orleans.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Miles.

I'm just looking at a bus going down the street through the staging area. Five-hundred buses are being taken to an area where there are tents set up for the evacuees to come to. It's very near the convention center. I just wanted to show folks that the buses are on the way and they're pulling into the parking lot right now, ready to take people away.

I got to tell you, though, when we first heard the convention center site was going to be used as a staging area to pick up evacuees, we thought it was a joke, because there's such an aura still attached to this place. In fact, when you first come into the city of New Orleans, you just want to go past the convention center to see where it happened. I mean, remember, back, there were dead bodies on the street, there were desperate people calling out for help, there was human excrement everywhere, and garbage piled up, shopping carts were everywhere; this was a desperate place.

In fact, yesterday, when we went by, we saw people were in biohazard suits inside the convention center cleaning up, because you still can't go in there without that kind of suit. That's how bad it remains. Now keep in mind, they're not asking people to go inside the convention center; they're asking people to go down the street. And according to Lieutenant General Honore, he says, get over it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, KATRINA JOINT TASK FORCE: We are not going to go by order of the mayor and the governor and open the convention center for people to come in. There are buses there, is that clear to you? Buses parked. There are 4,000 troops there. People come, they get on the bus, they get on a truck, they move on. Is that clear? Is that clear to the public?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Those buses are parked -- like I said, those buses are parked across the street in front of an Army field hospital that they have set up, so if anyone gets sick or anyone is injured, there is medical care available for them to get ready.

So, Miles, it seems -- oh, we're looking at another shot the convention center inside, I believe, and you can see what a mess it still is inside the convention center. But I must say, outside of the convention center, the sidewalks are at least clear of all the garbage, although that garbage is piled up everywhere, like around the corner. There's a huge pile of shopping carts taken from this side of the convention center, waiting to be picked up by garbage collectors, which as you know we've been talking about, it's a big problem. But the evacuation plan is in place. As for who will be getting on the buses to be taken out of town, we don't know, because there aren't many people left in the city of New Orleans -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, no one really knows the number, do they?

COSTELLO: Nope, no one knows. There are a lot of workers who have been taken in from out of state. Maybe they'll be getting on the buses. We don't know. But Mayor Nagin said yesterday two buses already pulled away with some evacuees on board.

M. O'BRIEN: Carol Costello, in New Orleans at the convention center, thanks much -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, fresh from his fifth trip to the Gulf Coast region, President Bush is back at the White House this morning. Elaine Quijano is there for us this morning.

Elaine, good morning to you.

With Hurricane Rita now storming toward Texas, what exactly is the president doing?

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

President Bush says that he has been in touch with Texas Governor Rick Perry about getting ready for Hurricane Rita. Now the president yesterday on a visit to Louisiana, received a briefing aboard the USS Iwo Jima about it, getting the latest information.

The president saying during that visit all up and down the coast line, people are getting ready for what's expected to be a significant storm. The president also says that another admiral is being stationed in Texas to coordinate the response there.

Now, as for military assets, the president says that they're being taken out of the New Orleans area, out of harm's way and will come back behind the storm in order to help. Officials say that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security as well have prepositioned assets, ice, water, MREs as well, disaster-relief teams in anticipation of the team. And of course President Bush himself, in addition to his usual intelligence briefing, now receives a daily hurricane briefing as well.

In the meantime, the president has a number of events in town scheduled today, including a meeting this morning with key senators over filling the vacancy left by retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But the Bush administration very focused in the work of that scathing criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina now very anxious to show that the president is keeping on top of the latest developments with Hurricane Rita -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Elaine Quijano at the White House for us this morning. Elaine, thank you -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: As Hurricane Rita gains strength in the Gulf, Texas busily preparing for its landfall. Complicating matters for the Lone Star State, it opened its doors and its arms to thousands of Katrina evacuees from New Orleans. How well prepared is the state to handle the mass migration that it faces right now?

Joining us now from Austin, Governor Rick Perry. Governor, good to have you with us.

GOV. RICK PERRY, TEXAS: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: What's the biggest mistake post-Katrina that you have learned a lesson from that will not be repeated in Texas?

PERRY: Well, frankly, we have spent our time looking forward. The Hurricane Rita, its formation and working towards being prepared for that is where our focus has been. Obviously, working our way through any of the transportation issues that we saw out of Louisiana and the slowness of the local individuals to respond there. We're absorbing all of that information as we go forward. But we're not stopping to spend a lot of time looking backwards; we're looking at this storm that's facing us and being prepared for it. And evacuation is going on as we speak in Galveston. We'll be making decisions as the rest of the day goes forward if there are other areas.

We're prepositioning a substantial amount of assets, whether it's 5,000 National Guard troops, a thousand Department of Public Safety troopers and aviation assets.

I think Thursday morning is when we will see the first impact relative to tropical storm-type of winds hitting. If you're not out by then, you have problems.

M. O'BRIEN: So Thursday morning is a deadline everybody should be cognizant of.

Let's talk about this transportation issue, because the lack of buses. The fact that many people without cars in New Orleans were left behind. Do you feel like you have enough buses, and are they moving in the right direction right now to handle that problem?

PERRY: Yes, we do. I feel very comfortable that our emergency management director, Jack Colley, and Steve McCraw, who is our homeland security director, both of those individuals, who have extensive experience -- and one of the things, Miles, you have to keep in mind, is that Texas has been practicing these types of evacuations for the last four years. Plus, we've had some substantial disasters in the state, real-time disasters, whether it was the shuttle disaster, whether it was hurricane -- or excuse me, Tropical Storm Allison that did five-plus billion dollars worth of damage to Houston. We had the Queen Isabella Causeway that fell. Again, manmade and national disasters. A lot of time spent doing realtime disasters in the state of Texas.

So I happen to think that we are as prepared as humanly possible for this storm. When you start talking four and five-level storms, then it's a huge, huge problem. M. O'BRIEN: It's time to pay attention. Now one of the things that came out of Katrina was a confused chain of command. It was, in many cases, unclear who was in charge. Who is in charge there in Texas right now?

PERRY: Well, certainly, that's the reason that we do as many exercises as we do. Our local, county judges, and our mayors and our homeland security are working with the state and federal. We have a really great working relationship. FEMA, Greg Jones, who -- or Gary Jones, who's the head of FEMA here in this region, we've got great working relationships. Our command center, underneath the Department of Public Safety building, is a very well oiled machine.

Again, category four, category five is going to test all of us. That's the reason that we sent those mock-ups, if you will, of what happens to a Galveston, what happens to a Houston, what happens to a Corpus Christi, with visual pictures of this is what the city looks like with a category-four storm surge.

Along with the very vivid pictures of Katrina, I think Texans are going to be taking any warnings very seriously.

M. O'BRIEN: Governor Rick Perry, let's hope Rita doesn't mess with Texas too much.

PERRY: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Thanks very much -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Straight ahead this morning, we've got much more on the preparations for Hurricane Rita. Is FEMA ready to handle another monster hurricane? We're going to check in with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, just ahead this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: Plus, an update on those levee repairs in New Orleans. We'll find out what engineers are doing to help those levees hold up against Rita. All it amounts to is a lot of sandbags. Will that be enough?

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Hurricane Rita now, you're looking at the loop there, picking up strength as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana preparing for the very worst. The governor declaring a state of emergency, and the Army Corps of Engineers is scrambling now to shore up the crippled levees.

Carol Costello live for us in New Orleans this morning.

Hey, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning, Soledad.

You know, what's really ironic is the city of New Orleans is essentially dry. The Army Corps of Engineers in city of New Orleans has managed to pump out three quarters of a trillion gallons of water. They pumped all of that out from the city. That's a hard number to get your mind around is it, because each billion is one thousand million, each million is one thousand thousands, and They did all of that in two and a half weeks. A magnificent job.

And now, here comes Rita. But the Army Corps of Engineers and the city say they're ready.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): If there is a picture of cooperation between local and federal officials, this is it.

COL. DUANE GAPINSKI, U.S. ARMY: How could we get along without Joe? You know, he's been here, like, 75 years. I mean 35 years.

COSTELLO: And with Rita threatening, cooperation between the local pump guy and the Army engineer is exactly what is need now. According to the mayor, just three to six inches of rain will mean four feet of floodwater for parts of New Orleans.

JOE SULLIVAN, N.O. SEWER, WATER BOARD: I think we'll get it out. I think. Maybe I'm mule-headed, but I think we'll get it out.

GAPINSKI: We'll get it out.

COSTELLO: But it's really up to Joe Sullivan to get rid of the water. He manages New Orleans pumping station. Eighty percent of these giant pumps are still down or damaged. Still, Joe and crew have managed to pump three quarters of a million gallons of water into Lake Pontchartrain.

Colonel Duane Gapinski of Army Corps of Engineers says New Orleans is essentially dry. That could change if the levees fail again. And that is a problem for the colonel and his team.

(on camera): How strong are the levees?

GAPINSKI: Well, of course, it depends where you are. North of us, on Lake Pontchartrain, we could probably handle a 10 to 12-foot storm surge.

COSTELLO (voice-over): But the east side, the most heavily damaged, can only handle a five to six-foot storm surge, something that could happen if Hurricane Rita makes landfall to the right of Louisiana as a category-one storm.

GAPINSKI: There are sections of the levee out east that were 17- and-a-half feet tall, and they're completely gone.

COSTELLO: So the temporary solution is to build a steel curtain at the end of each canal in the city. That will hopefully prevent new flooding.

GAPINSKI: See you tonight at 8:00, right? COSTELLO: Not a sure thing, but it's the best this team can do, but they're confident by working together, they can prevent another catastrophe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: They're two great guys, and they're getting along so well, and they're both so different in the personality. In fact, the colonel is from New York, and of course, Joe, he's been here his whole life and he's worked at that pumping station for 34 years.

The other safeguards that they'll have in place, they'll have 800 giant sandbags, and these are giant sandbags. Each weighs 6,000- 15,000 pounds apiece, and they'll use that to kind of shore things up wherever the levee is breached. They have 2,500 more on standby. Just in case, they say they're as ready as they can be.

S. O'BRIEN: Sounds hopeful. Hopefully Rita will pass them by and all of these preparations will be for nothing.

All right, Carol, thanks. We'll check in with you again -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, oil companies play it safe as Rita approaches. We'll tell you what they're doing, how much it's affecting gas prices. Andy Serwer here "Minding Your Business," next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Andy Serwer is here. He's going to talk about oil prices a little bit later actually, for those of you keeping score at home.

But in the meantime, there was big concern, post-Katrina, that it ultimately could trip off, ultimately, the domino hit and a recession. But some things happened yesterday that might change all that.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Right, the federal reserve seems to think otherwise, Miles. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the 11th time since June of 2004, setting the short term interest rate at 3.75 percent, up a quarter percent.

As Miles suggested, the Fed was looking very closely at Katrina to see how it impact the economy. There were some thinking it would stop raising interest rates because of this negative impact, but it did not. It said it was watching with concern, but it will continue to raise rates at a measured pace, using that language. That means get ready for higher interest rates.

The stock market did not like the news. Right around 2:15 when the announcement came out, stocks took a dive, stayed down. You can see red ink across the board there.

My take on this, however, is more positive, and that's because if the Federal Reserve thinks the economy is strong enough to withstand higher interest rates, in other words, more concerned about it overheating than slowing down, why, that's a good thing. And, in fact,Stock futures are up a little bit this morning, though, of course, the big concern is Hurricane Rita at this point, and could that be another huge devastating blow.

M. O'BRIEN: And of course, once again, oil prices, they're a focus whenever you've got a storm there in the middle of the Gulf.

SERWER: They're up again this morning, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, we'll talk about that more in just a little bit. Thank you, Andy -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, Hurricane Katrina exposed huge weakness at FEMA. So what happens now as we face Hurricane Rita? We'll check in with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. That's just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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