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American Morning

Katrina Six Months Later; Lizzie's Katrina Diary

Aired March 01, 2006 - 08:34   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The city of Atlanta and of course the city of Houston, both of those cities opened their arms to tens of thousands of Katrina evacuees. And now six months later, those two cities are feeling the financial burden of their newest residents.
Joining us this morning from Atlanta is Mayor Shirley Franklin. From Houston is Mayor Bill White.

Nice to see you both...

MYR. SHIRLEY FRANKLIN, ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: ... for our periodic check-in. Thank you for being with us.

MYR. BILL WHITE, HOUSTON, TEXAS: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Let's begin with you, if we can, Mayor White. First of all, give me numbers in Houston. How many residents do you now have there?

WHITE: There's over 150,000 new residents in our community that came from the devastated area, mostly Orleans Parish.

S. O'BRIEN: Last time we spoke, your exact words were, "We've been told the check's in the mail," and I guess it's a hopeful way of saying, you're waiting for FEMA to do something for you. Did that mailed check ever arrive?

WHITE: Well, it always gets there, and it's always the day before the deadline arrives. There's hardworking FEMA people on the ground. The undersecretary and secretary seem to get it, what we need, but in the middle, something happens to these checks, and lawyers divert them and get into debates when to reimburse us.

Meanwhile, our taxpayers insist that if we're on the frontlines of taking care of our fellow Americans, then FEMA should step up to the plate and help us.

S. O'BRIEN: Mayor Franklin, I last read that you had 35,000 new residents. Is that number about right?

FRANKLIN: That's about right. We don't have a formal calculation. We know 42,000 families moved to Georgia, mostly in the metro Atlanta area.

S. O'BRIEN: And housing was your big problem, too? FRANKLIN: Well, housing is part of the problem. Part of the problem is just the social services agencies having enough resources, whether it's the food bank or United Way. We've had to have major drives to raise funds, and to get supplies and food for people who have moved here.

S. O'BRIEN: Now, have you had the evacuees stay extended? I know that was a big problem, that people sort of hit this timeline, Mayor Franklin, and all of a sudden, that was it, they had to be out of the hotel, or out of the temporary housing. Has that been extended for you?

FRANKLIN: Well, no. Today there are about 350 families today that will have to leave hotels. And in a few days, another 50 or 60 families who will have to leave. So we are scrambling to be sure they can find temporary or permanent housing.

S. O'BRIEN: Now Mayor White, there was a move by FEMA, that, in fact, would extend the housing vouchers for your residents or new residents, I guess I should say, extend them for a year. So you must be feeling more hopeful on that front, is that correct?

WHITE: That's right. We have a housing program that houses 35,000 families in apartments so that people can get in the mainstream of the community, and get employment and get on with their lives, make plans to return if they want to return. And this is a 12-month housing voucher program. Of course, our local tax base won't fill in, in that period of time, but I'll tell you what, it's the best possible way of getting Americans back on their feet.

S. O'BRIEN: I want you to both answer the question. Both of your cities were renowned, frankly, for the generosity. The hurricane victims were there, needed a place, and your cities opened their arms and said come here, come to us. Are your citizens feeling regretful or sorry, annoyed that they made that generous offer early on because of the financial and other issues you're facing now?

FRANKLIN: Well, certainly not in Atlanta. We recognize that this is a natural disaster and that we have to help our fellow Americans. The not-for-profit sector, the United Way, Hosea Feed the Hungry, just dozens of not-for-profits, and churches, and synagogues and mosques have stepped up. We have not had an extension on housing, but we are helping families every single day, and we'll continue to do that.

S. O'BRIEN: How about you, Mayor White.

WHITE: There is a great deal of pride that we stepped up with compassion and confidence that gives a lot of people an ability to live out their faith.

And yes, it is frustrating sometimes when you have to battle your own government to get dollars you are promised, but I'll you what any American could be in a situation where they are devastated or left homeless by circumstance, and we got to let our fellow citizens know that there will be somebody there to lift them up. S. O'BRIEN: Houston Mayor Bill White, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin joining us. Of course your two cities with really, I think, tremendous reputations for generosity, frankly, for the hurricane victims.

Thanks for talking with us and checking with us, and we'll do it again in another couple of months, I'm sure.

WHITE: You bet.

FRANKLIN: Thank you.

(MARKET REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, we're talking about a promising new treatment for depression. It's about to hit the market. It's not a pill. You don't pop it; you wear it. We'll explain just ahead -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Soledad, some friends of yours are here, Lizzie Maloy and her mom. Donnie (ph) always has the DV camera there. She's filming everything, because she just has to document the whole thing. Her video diary, Lizzie's, as a senior, from this hard-hit part of the world has been an ongoing saga, I guess, if you will, for us. We have the latest installment coming up. You're not going to want to miss it.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Time now for another installment in the "Chronicles of Lizzie Maloy." Lizzie Maloy, you frequent viewers know, is a high school senior, Long Beach, Mississippi. And we gave her a camera sometime ago, just immediately subsequent to Hurricane Katrina coming through here, and told her to keep a diary. We know senior year is a difficult time, a challenging time, a crossroads in your life for any high school senior. But imagine throwing in Hurricane Katrina right at the beginning of your senior year. It has changed everything. It has put ripples through every decision the seniors have made, and Lizzie has documented the story. Here's her latest installment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIZZIE MALOY, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: We're going to go south of the tracks to dig through some debris, to pick up pieces of glass or tile that National Art Honor Society is going to use in a Katrina mosaic that we are going to put in our school to honor the community and recovery, and just symbolize what this whole experience has been.

So that's what we're going to do. And hopefully, it will give you an idea of how much progress has been made down there, or how much progress has not been made down there, so.

Martin, you want to explain where we are?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is south of the tracks, where First Baptist Church of Long Beach used to be.

MALOY: And it was your church, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. That's the steeple. That's all that's left. And right now, we're getting tile and it's glass, but that's for a mosaic we're going to make.

MALOY: Oh, so -- that one is pretty. That's amazing. Oh, it's like bathroom tile.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, it looks like it was part of a bathroom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good one. Hey, look at that. That's neat. That's neat. I like it a lot.

MALOY: Jillian, have you college plans changed at all since the hurricane?

JILLIAN SCHERMOND, LONG BEACH H.S. SENIOR: Yes, a little bit. I was planning on going to a university, you know, straight off, right out of high school. But now I'm going to a junior college for my first probably two years. The first reason is to, you know, stay close to the family and, you know, help them out since we did lose everything in the storm and I'm trying to stay close to help out the family and, you know, get kind of things back in order. And also because like the money situation, you know, we had to buy a whole new house, insurance. I know a lot of people aren't getting money right now and stuff. And so it's like a big hardship right now because of the storm.

ASHLEIGH KELLOGG, LONG BEACH H.S. SENIOR: It's quite overwhelming when in the past few months, you know, you lose your family's home. And we didn't have flood insurance and my dad lost his job and it's just -- there's so much to pay for, and then all of these other things are being thrown at you, like paying for freshman year of college, you know, with food and housing and everything.

MALOY: It's still our last year of high school and we would have been given the opportunity to care if it hadn't been for people across the nation who wanted to help us. And that's really what we are truly thankful for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: All right, let's kill the audio there, Lizzie. Lizzie, you just saw that diary put together for us for the first time. Listening to everybody there, it occurs to me that every decision they're making -- and there a lot of decisions senior year -- is related in some way to what has happened with this storm?

MALOY: Yes, there's many kids who were planning to go to out-of- state schools to some great university that they've always dreamed about, but now they're having to go to a community college because of the financial situation that we're -- all of us are being put in.

M. O'BRIEN: What about your personally? I know you want to go to Emerson College...

MALOY: In Boston, yes.

M. O'BRIEN: That's an expensive school.

MALOY: It's over $40,000 a year.

M. O'BRIEN: That's not chump change. So you -- with your parents struggling, trying to get back on their feet, it's kind of hard to ask them to write a check like that.

M. O'BRIEN: Very much so. So I've been trying my best to get as many outside scholarships as possible. But really, it is all going to come down to money. And the in-state schools have been fabulous, because the federal government is giving in-state schools money for us this year. And every in-state school has a section on its Web site where it says Katrina victims, you know, come here and fill out this forms. But the out of state schools, there's really nothing that they can do.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, if they're listening at Emerson College this morning, I think this is somebody who you might want to help out to come to your college there. I think she'd be great. I know the TV station I worked at in Boston many years ago, there were many Emerson interns, and I think you'd do a great job there. Just putting in the plug for you.

Let me ask you this, though, on a serious note. Do kids your age, the young men and women, do you feel as if things are moving forward? There's a sense of limbo here, I detect. What do you detect?

MALOY: Well, right now -- right now, there's really nowhere the situation can go other than getting better, if think about it. Because we've been put through the most awful experience that pretty much anybody can imagine. So everything that happens, it is moving forward.

Right now, we are put in a situation where we're having to make these difficult decisions. And that note, we do feel like we're in a sense of limbo, because we -- every -- all of our decisions have to be made by decisions from other people. Does that make sense?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

MALOY: So in that way, yes, it does feel like we're in very much of a limbo.

M. O'BRIEN: So much out of your control. Let's -- we got to open the door here very quickly and say hi to mom. She should be out here. She -- where -- she gave the camera to Scott, our truck operator. Johnny (ph) just real quickly. You got to be proud of Lizzie going through all this. But it's been tough, hasn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been very tough. Yes. But we are all struggling, but we're doing OK and it is getting better and she says that every time, but it truly is. And it's been an amazing year.

M. O'BRIEN: Amazing is one way to put it. All right, Maloys, always a pleasure.

MALOY: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: We'll see you next time. So keep shooting now.

MALOY: I will!

M. O'BRIEN: All right, back to you, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. Make sure you tell the Maloys, both of them, and all the other family members, too, that Soledad says hey.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad says hey.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning on AMERICAN MORNING, President Bush making a surprise visit to Afghanistan. We'll tell you why he's there.

Meanwhile, thousands are protesting his upcoming visit to India. Some amazing pictures from there.

Dozens of people are killed by bombings in Iraq.

And Saddam Hussein is back in court today.

Plus, a new kind of treatment for depression. We're going to take a look at its advantages over some of the pills that are already available.

We'll take a look all of those stories, just ahead as AMERICAN MORNING continues. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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