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The Situation Room
National Guard Continues Evacuation of New Orleans; Almost 1,000 Dead in Stampede in Baghdad
Aired August 31, 2005 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's 3:00 p.m. Central Time in New Orleans where tensions have been rising along with the flood waters. It's now a frantic race against time to evacuate literally tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. And they're desperately trying to plug leaking levees.
The terrible toll in Mississippi under way, as well. We're getting a clearer picture right now of the death and despair in that state. We expect a live update this hour from the governor, Haley Barbour.
The president of the United States taking command. This hour, Mr. Bush heads a White House meeting on help for hurricane victims and then plans to speak to the American public. He speaks at the top of the next hour from the Rose Garden. What exactly is the federal government doing right now? And will it be enough?
I'm Wolf Blitzer, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
Up for desperate times and desperate measures in New Orleans. According to the Associated Press, the mayor, Ray Nagin, now says at least hundreds of people are dead there. And possibly -- even likely, he says -- thousands of people are dead.
As that city continues to drown in flood waters, U.S. Army engineers have been struggling to plug busted levees with 3,000-pound sandbags. One top engineer told me here just a short while ago here in THE SITUATION ROOM that that process could take two to three days at the earliest. And then, he says, it could take another three to six months to get that water out of the city.
Officials are moving forward with a plan to evacuate 23,000 people holed up in the New Orleans Superdome and in need, desperate need right now, of food and water and much, much more.
Texas is sending almost 500 buses to carry evacuees to Houston where they'll stay in another stadium. That would be the Astrodome.
In Mississippi, at least 110 deaths have been reported but not confirmed. The Harrison County coroner says search-and-rescue teams have probably gotten into about only half of the damaged areas, but it may be several days, perhaps even weeks, before some of those areas are reached.
President Bush is now back in Washington. He cut short his vacation. This hour, he's set to meet with top White House aides dealing with the response to the hurricane disaster. And in the next hour, he's planning to go before the cameras to talk about the crisis along the Gulf Coast. He'll be speaking with the American people from the Rose Garden. We'll carry his remarks live.
Let's take a look at Katrina now by some of the latest numbers that we're getting state-by-state.
First, Louisiana. As we said, the New Orleans mayor saying perhaps hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people are dead. More than 700,000 people are still without power. New Orleans' mayor says it could take 12 to 16 weeks before people will be allowed to return.
Let's move over to Mississippi where they say 110 people are now dead -- that's the report -- as many as 100 from a single county alone. That would be Harrison County. A million people in that state are without power. That represents 75 percent of the state. Twenty thousand people in Mississippi are in shelters right now.
Let's move over to Alabama. Two dead, that's the confirmation there. Nearly 500,000 people -- half a million people -- are still without electricity in Alabama.
As we've mentioned, the situation is getting worse in New Orleans by the minute. Conditions are deteriorating for a city now virtually under water.
Our John Zarrella described the scene just a little while ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's no system of water. There's no sanitation any longer. The knee-deep water in the hotel lobby, it just reeks with stench. It is a miserable, deteriorating situation in the city. It's growing worse by the hour, and the water is rising.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: CNN producer Kim Segal is on the scene for us. Kim, where exactly in New Orleans are you right now?
KIM SEGAL, CNN PRODUCER: Well, Wolf, I am on Canal Street. But what I want to tell you is, a local police officer came up to me and asked me to tell you to get the word out. There is a fire. There's a fire at the Footaction Clothing Store.
And it is on the corner of Bourbon and Canal. There's a fire. There's smoke billowing out of the building. And the buildings are so close here, the police officer told me he's afraid the whole block is in danger.
And he wants everybody to know, because he does not have radio communications with any of his colleagues, that there is a fire now downtown. And the looting is still going on.
BLITZER: And this is in the historic French Quarter, is that right?
SEGAL: That's right. If you know Canal Street, which is a main street on the outskirts of the French Quarter, the hotels, a lot of the major hotels are down here where we are. This fire is taking place literally a couple doors down from the Renaissance Hotel. That was the hotel that was evacuated earlier this morning. So thankfully anyone who was in the Renaissance is now out.
BLITZER: Kim, are the streets around where this fire has burst open, are the streets passable there? Could fire trucks even get close to that situation?
SEGAL: The water where the fire is taking place is maybe a foot deep. It's not bad yet. It keeps coming up. And it's getting higher and higher. We started on that block (INAUDIBLE) and then the water kept pushing us back up the street, which for those of you who know, closer to the Mississippi River, closer to the convention center.
BLITZER: Kim, there's been some confusion about the nature of the water on the streets of New Orleans, how dirty it is, how stinky it might be, how dangerous it might be because of insects or mosquitoes. Describe it as best you can.
SEGAL: Wolf, before I do this, I have a lieutenant here with the New Orleans Police Department who wants to talk to you, OK? Hold on. I'm going to give him the phone.
BLITZER: Thanks.
LT. BRIAN WININGER, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Hello?
BLITZER: Yes, Lieutenant. Give us your name, please.
WININGER: My name is Lieutenant Brian Wininger, W-I-N-I-N-G-E-R.
BLITZER: And tell us what's going on, from your perspective.
WININGER: What's going on now is a lot of water. And from what I understand, we're trying to evacuate everybody out. So I would say, you know, get everybody to -- the Superdome, I know, and a lot of people are on the interstate trying to evacuate everybody.
But it's just -- you know, we're just holding it in right now. We do have a big fire at Bourbon and Canal at the Foot Locker. But, you know, we can't get to it right now.
BLITZER: How dangerous is the situation where you are, Brian?
WININGER: What's that?
BLITZER: How dangerous is the situation where you are?
WININGER: I think the biggest danger we have right now is disease, you know, in the water. The water's full of gas and diesel. It's like it's probably going to be like a hazardous waste dump, I guess, you know? BLITZER: Are people getting out? Can they get out? Because I understand it's not that easy to get out of New Orleans.
WININGER: No. There's places you can get through, especially -- we just pushed a whole bunch of people from Canal and Bourbon there to the river, where they can get to the convention center, trying to get them up there.
BLITZER: How do people fight a fire in an area where you are right now, Brian, under these conditions?
WININGER: I really don't know if they're going to get there. I know you all called it in, and I appreciate it. We called it in. I don't even know if the fire trucks can make it here. So hopefully they can, you know? But we cleared out the building. Nobody's in it, that we know of.
BLITZER: So at least -- as far as you can tell, there is nobody that's directly endangered right now, unless that fire spreads?
WININGER: Right, right.
BLITZER: Brian, give us a little perspective. You've been there for the past three days. The situation clearly getting worse, as I said earlier, by the minute. How bad is it right now?
WININGER: We're kind of out of communication, so I don't know if the water's still coming in. My understanding is they're still trying to close a place called the 17th Street Canal. But they might have closed it already.
Communication's gone. You know, our radios are out. We have no electricity, so we can't charge them. We're trying to do the best we can, you know?
BLITZER: Well, good luck to you, Brian...
WININGER: Can I say something?
BLITZER: Pardon?
WININGER: I want you to put on the air Athena (ph), Monte Leone (ph), Nicole Barbay (ph), Jake Snapp (ph), Carol Richian (ph), Easterland McKendall (ph) and Nick Gurnen (ph). Tell all of our families that we're safe.
BLITZER: All right, well, thank you. That's good to know.
WININGER: And the First District's OK. People in the First District are OK.
BLITZER: OK. Well, good to hear that, Brian. Thank you very much. And we'll check back with you, and check back with Kim Segal, as well.
WININGER: Thank you (ph). BLITZER: All right, thank you very much, Brian. Appreciate it very much. Good luck to you. Good luck to our Kim Segal. She's still on the scene for us in New Orleans.
Let's go over to CNN's Jeanne Meserve. She's made the move from New Orleans. She's in Baton Rouge right now.
Jeanne, first of all, tell our viewers what it was like in the immediate hours before you left New Orleans.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the cameramen I was with described it as Bangladesh. That's what it looks like, a major, major catastrophe that's taking an extraordinary toll, not just in terms of human life, but for the living.
They have lost their homes. They can't get to their jobs, if there are jobs, because businesses are destroyed. Businesses cannot rebuild because there's no infrastructure. It defies comprehension that the United States can look like this.
I want to introduce you to someone, if I could. This is Dorian Browder, a resident of New Orleans who came out on Sunday, has been here in Baton Rouge ever since.
Dorian, you're upset at the lack of -- you're upset at the lack of preparation for this, right?
DORIAN BROWDER, EVACUEE FROM NEW ORLEANS: Yes, I am. It was overwhelming when I found out that they had not prepared for this catastrophe. We were only able to really contain a 3 Category hurricane, and they knew this was a possibility to be a 5 Category.
They had many years to prepare for this, the professions, the Corps of Engineers. Why had they not brainstormed this? Why would they not be prepared? I don't understand it. What are they doing every day in their offices, the atrocity?
MESERVE: We've talked a lot about the difficulties that people who remained in the city are having. You came out here. It's not easy for you, either, is it?
BROWDER: Not at all. Right now, we are in dire situations, very dire. The majority of us staying in this hotel -- it's called the Baymont in Baton Rouge -- we have ran out of moneys. We have no homes to go to.
I'm looking and wondering what has happened to my elderly mother. I don't know. We're at a loss. We have no jobs to go to. We're just at a loss.
We are devastated. We're upset. We think that things should have been better prepared from Washington, D.C., the president, on down to our governor, Kathleen Blanco.
MESERVE: Dorian, thank you so much. And good luck.
BROWDER: Thank you.
MESERVE: That's sort of typical, Wolf, of the kind of reaction you're getting from people who have left the city or are in the city. I have to tell you, getting out of the city for us was difficult. We had to just sort of improvise our way across the city to get to dry land and then out.
We made it, thank goodness. But on the way, it looked like the Dust Bowl. You've seen the pictures of the Dust Bowl, of people piled onto the back of trucks, moving their lives. That's what's happening here. It's extraordinary to witness.
Wolf?
BLITZER: Jeanne, I take it you left the city because it was simply getting much too dangerous?
MESERVE: Yes, the projections were this morning that the water was going to rise another two feet. We've been having an extraordinary difficult time doing our jobs, operating off car batteries. We were afraid we were going to lose our capability to charge them, because the cars were going underwater, or the water was going to make those in the garage inaccessible to us.
We just felt we weren't going to be able to produce much for the network. And there are health concerns. We still have a cameraman who broke his foot shooting during the hurricane on Monday. He still has not gotten any medical attention.
All of us have been in water that, as you've heard, is highly contaminated. And, frankly, we all wanted to get back to our loved ones. So we have come out. Many of us are going to continue to cover this aftermath.
This is, I truly believe, Wolf, apart from 9/11, one of the most significant events that has ever hit this country. It's just astounding.
But, Wolf, what I want to say, yes, we got out. We are lucky. What we went through is nothing next to what the people of New Orleans are going to have to go through in the coming days, and frankly for the coming years. Anybody who tells you this is going to be put to rights in a matter of months simply hasn't seen the situation.
Wolf?
BLITZER: I don't think the pictures can do justice to what you've seen with your own eyes, Jeanne. Just describe -- take a moment -- and just collect your thoughts and describe some of the images that you saw in New Orleans as you were -- when you were there and as you were preparing to leave.
MESERVE: People carrying their children, trying to get them to safety. A woman coming down to the police, close to hysteric, saying, my elderly mother is in a building over there. She needs dialysis. She can't get dialysis. She is dying. Can you help me? And the police have to say, there is absolutely nothing we can do. They said, we don't have a precinct house. We don't have communications. There is absolutely nothing we can do for you.
That was amazing to me.
The other thing that struck me was the looting. The police were standing in the middle of the street. And right in front of them, stores were being ransacked. And they didn't even make an effort to stop it.
I don't think they could, under the situation. One, they were totally outnumbered. They couldn't call for any kind of reinforcements. And I think, frankly, the priority now isn't property. The priority has to be people and people's lives.
The police are there protectively, I think, in case things escalate even further, but they're powerless. They're powerless in this situation.
The other thing -- we've talked a lot about the flooding, and the flooding is the biggest story. Don't get me wrong. But to go through the dry areas of the city was also startling.
I've covered other hurricanes. I've seen hurricane destruction. I have stopped and said, oh, my gosh, look at that building. We have to get a picture.
Today, every building looked like that. There were cars smashed to smithereens. There were buildings that had totally collapsed. I have trouble coming up with the words to describe it. Even in the dry areas of the city, things are horrible. It's going to take a lot of work to get that put to rights.
We did see, as we were coming back, help going in. We did see tree removal trucks. We saw electric trucks. Help is beginning to come in.
And we even saw -- this was a very strong image -- Air Force One, or what we believe was Air Force One. A lot of us have covered the White House. And if it wasn't, I'm shocked.
And you know more about the president's schedule than I do, but we believe we saw Air Force One flying over the city as we were leaving. And that was an image to us, because we've been out of communication, unaware really of what's happening in the outside world, and a sign that you've heard, you've heard, you've listened.
Another thing that sticks with me is what's going on in the hotels. Our hotel was magnificent, in terms of how they handled the situation. And today, they evacuated all the people in our hotel to another hotel that was drier.
But some of the hotels I know just have to be in quite dire straits. They were booked to the hilt. You've got people living in very crowded conditions, whole families in rooms. They do not have plumbing of any type.
It is going to become a health hazard in the hotels, if those people aren't given some assistance sometime soon. And I don't know about the food and water situation in some of those other hotels. Some of them were right near the water. Some of them had a lot of glass. I know at least one of them -- one of those that was heavily glassed was fully booked. I don't know what's happened to those people. They must be having a difficult time of it, too.
Wolf?
BLITZER: I'm going to let you collect your thoughts, Jeanne. But one quick note. Two days ago on this program, you described the situation as apocalypse, your words, what you saw.
Only in the past hour or so, we heard the mayor of New Orleans -- I don't know if you know this yet -- Ray Nagin say that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, he believes, are now dead in New Orleans.
You saw this unfold with your very eyes. Give us your quick reaction to what the mayor of New Orleans has just said.
MESERVE: He's absolutely right. And when I was out there on I-10 looking at those houses flooded to the eves, I believe I said on your show, this is life and death. And it's going to be a lot more death than life.
I have no doubt that it's in the thousands. No doubt at all. And there could be, as everyone has been talking, a secondary set of catastrophic events, the disease and the death that that could bring.
Wolf?
BLITZER: I think you said Armageddon instead of apocalypse, but what's the difference at this stage? Jeanne Meserve, we'll check back with you.
MESERVE: You're right.
BLITZER: Thank you very much.
The U.S. Coast Guard says it's rescued now more than 1,200 hurricane victims. That number keeps on going up, thank God. The Coast Guard chopper pilot Lieutenant Craig O'Brien has become a hero many times over, saving the trapped and the stranded. He's joining us now on the phone.
Captain, thanks very much. Can you hear me OK?
LT. CRAIG O'BRIEN, U.S. COAST GUARD AIR STATION: Yes, Wolf. I can hear you fine. Thank you.
BLITZER: All right, give us -- you've done this back and forth. How many of these operations have you done? How many people have you personally saved? O'BRIEN: Personally, the numbers are getting almost too high to count. I'm primarily flying at night, because I'm permanently stationed here in New Orleans at Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans. Last night, in a two-hour period, we had almost over 36 people as we're shuttling them throughout this city.
As some of your reporters have said, words cannot describe what you see when flying over this city, especially at night. Hundreds and hundreds of flashlights are signaling us, strobe lights, flares. It's a tough situation for a search-and-rescue professional.
But what I can tell you, the men and women of the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army, the Air National Guard, the Air Force, Customs, it's an impressive joint operation. And we're doing everything and anything we can do at 150, 200 percent to get as many of these people out of New Orleans into safe haven as we can.
BLITZER: Lieutenant, I had promoted you to captain. I know it's Lieutenant Craig O'Brien.
Lieutenant, how do you pick who shall live and, in effect, who might die?
O'BRIEN: Wolf, we have -- the communication medium here, we're trying to establish the highest priority people to get out of the city. But as the police lieutenant said, communications are, you know, poor at best.
The people on scene, the aircraft commanders in the aircrafts, we're put in a really troublesome situation. At night, we can't tell. We go by the signals, and we just rescue whoever we can. And our rescue swimmers are going down on the scene. They triage people and figure out who needs to get out the quickest to get them advanced medical care.
BLITZER: Lieutenant Craig O'Brien, I want to speak with you more in the next hour, if we can reconnect. Good luck to you. Good luck to all the men and women of the United States Coast Guard. Thanks for doing the heroic work that you're doing, literally saving people's lives. There's nothing more important than that.
Our Kim Segal, just a little while ago, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, was describing a fire that had erupted at a store there, a Foot Locker. We're just getting this video now into CNN via videophone from New Orleans.
I think you can make -- you can see some of the firefighters with their hoses trying to deal with this fire in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans. Just as if they need more disaster and destruction on top of everything else, fire erupting in New Orleans, as well.
We'll watch this video together with you. Hopefully, the firefighters will get the situation under control. Much more coverage, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Coming up, the president of the United States responds. We'll have a report on what Mr. Bush and his administration are doing right now to try to help hurricane victims.
Much more of our coverage coming up. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Want to immediately go back to the French Quarter in New Orleans. Our producer, Kim Segal, is on the scene. Kim, we just got some of that video via videophone of the fire that has erupted where you are. Walk us through what has happened.
SEGAL: Well, the fire department heard the call. They came out here. The biggest problem, Wolf, is there's no water to fight this fire. The firemen are now looking for water to fight this fire. The hydrants are not working.
BLITZER: So they have hoses, they have a fire truck there, they have firefighters, but they literally have no water. The irony being there's plenty of water on the streets, but the hydrants aren't working.
SEGAL: That's correct. There are plenty of firefighters and no water. They've have two trucks here now, and they're already pulled their hoses inside. They're ready to go. They just need some water.
BLITZER: And is the fire escalating, or is it seemingly under control on its own?
SEGAL: No, it looks like -- I mean, it's still going. There's no question about that. It's hard to tell, because it's in the interior of the building. But smoke is still billowing out of the building.
BLITZER: What's surrounding these buildings? Is there a potential for this fire really to get out of control in this historic French Quarter of New Orleans?
SEGAL: Yes, as people who have been here know, the buildings are all so close together. So they're afraid of it spreading. So it could take out the whole block.
BLITZER: And people are just standing around? Basically they're powerless to do anything right now?
SEGAL: I mean, the firefighters are doing everything they can to try to get water out of a hydrant or somehow to fight this. They have to fight it.
BLITZER: Have you been speaking to some of those firefighters, Kim?
SEGAL: Yes, I'm trying to. I've been trying not to get in their way, but they're relaying, and they're talking back and forth. And our folks -- Jerry Simonson is up there taking the pictures. I'm a block away on the pay phone. And we're walking back and forth and relaying messages.
BLITZER: Are you saying -- that pay phone actually works, huh?
SEGAL: It's amazing, Wolf. That's how we've been talking to you all day, from downtown New Orleans. Only way is this pay phone.
BLITZER: Well, it's good to know that those pay phones work. All right, Kim. Stand by. We're going to get back to you.
Kim Segal is one of our producers. She's normally based in Miami. She's been with us at CNN for a long time. She is still on the scene for us, together with some other courageous CNN personnel in New Orleans, an especially dangerous situation.
Only a little while ago, we heard the mayor say perhaps thousands of people are dead in New Orleans alone.
In neighboring Mississippi, the situation is awful, as well. The governor, Haley Barbour, says the destruction in his state -- and I'm quoting now -- "is indescribable." He says blocks, and blocks, and blocks of no houses at all.
Let's check in with our correspondents in Mississippi, our meteorologists. Rob Marciano is joining us from Biloxi, and Kathleen Koch is in Gulfport.
First to you, Rob. Give us a sense of what's happening in Mississippi where you are.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the past couple of hours, we've seen a number of things, Wolf, everything from the president in Air Force One flying at low levels, trying to assess the damage here in the Mississippi coastline, to FEMA trucks going up and down, telling everybody to get off the road, and giving us an update here and there.
Just off-the-record comments from just FEMA personnel driving by, one of which saying this is the worst they've ever seen, the big one. Another comment from a Department of Transportation official that has closed off points to our east, where, at Point Cadet, there's the inlet to Biloxi Bay, and then Biloxi Bay goes all the way into the backside of Biloxi.
On the other side of that inlet is Ocean Springs. The Ocean Springs Bridge is gone. They have search-and-rescue teams in from all over the country, especially from Florida.
And the words from them are, it is no longer a rescue operation -- and this is the words they use, and I get chills just repeating it -- but more of a "bag-and-tag operation." So a grim situation here, for sure, in Biloxi, where the storm surge did most of the damage, even with the 100 mile-an-hour-plus winds.
And then, on top of that, the stories of survival still keep coming in. Try to put a positive spin on such a -- it seems like every day, Wolf, the stories get worse and worse, and the damage gets worse and worse, and the lives lost, the number continues to climb.
But we still get stories of survival. And we still get stories of hope. And, you know, the fortitude of the human spirit remains. So there is some positive things going on here in Biloxi, among all the distressing news.
BLITZER: Rob, before I let you go, if you can, I want your photographer to pan -- to go wide a little bit and show our viewers what's behind you and describe those two levels, the two stories of that high-rise, and what happened to that building alone in Biloxi where you are.
MARCIANO: All right. This is a condominium building, Wolf. It's called the Windjammer. One of the reasons they call it that is because it's supposed to take on hurricane winds without a problem.
And if you look at the damage, it's all on the bottom two floors. So it did take on the wind. It was not knocked down by the wind. Nor was it completely knocked down by the storm surge. But the lower two floors completely taken out by that 25-foot wall of water that was the storm surge here in Biloxi, Mississippi.
So we talked to someone who lives on the third floor. He happened to be an insurance agent. And he gave us some tips on trying to make a claim, just to throw this out there, Wolf.
If -- say you were an evacuee and you're trying to get in touch with your insurance company, or you're thinking I've got to make a claim now in order to get my money right away. He says the worse the claim is, the faster you get the money. So there is no rush to get your claim in if you have minimal damage to your home.
But that sight's amazing, isn't it, Wolf? Just to see the bottom two floors of that condominium building taken out. What's surprising to me that it's still standing.
So you see things like that all the time, where floors are wiped out, buildings still standing. One house completely destroyed, house right next to it still standing. It's unbelievable to see.
BLITZER: All right. Rob, we'll check back with you. It's amazing just to see that structure. I don't know how sturdy it is right now, but those buildings, those floors underneath simply wiped out.
Let's go not far away from Biloxi to Gulfport. Kathleen Koch is standing by with an update on what's happening where you are, Kathleen. I assume it's a pretty sad situation, as well?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is. But, Wolf, the bright note right now, what you hear behind me and what you see behind me, this din, this roar, there are backhoes, there are bulldozers, there are dump trucks. They have been here since the early morning hours, and they are beginning the very long and the very slow process of beginning to clean up tons and tons upon tons of debris. And they're starting at the beach, at the worst hit area all along the 78-mile- long Gulf Coast of the state of Mississippi -- a Gulf Coast where I used to live. A Gulf Coast where I used to work. A Gulf Coast which is now completely unrecognizable to me. So they're starting with the worst and working their way inshore.
But I will tell you that when we came here yesterday from Mobile, Alabama, as we drove from the east, drove west, it just got worse and worse. And even north of I-10, the major interstate running east and west across the state of Mississippi, north of I-10 there was devastation.
So it just, it, boggles the mind when you look at, for instance, behind me. I think you can see a Copa Casino, one of the 12 casinos along the Gulf Coast. It used to be floating. It's not any more. It's up on the beach.
In front of that you can see 18-wheelers. They used to line the very busy and bustling port of Gulfport, the busiest port on this coast. They would bring in bananas by the ton. They would ship out chicken, ship out large massive three, four-ton rolls of paper.
All that now is rotting in the sun. The stench from the chicken, from shrimp, it's getting worse and it will become unbearable eventually. There's a lot of concern obviously that a lot of that stench may come from bodies, because the debris is piled high, not just here but up and down the coast.
BLITZER: All right. Kathleen, we'll check back with you. Kathleen Koch is in Gulfport, Mississippi.
We're getting word from the Pentagon on a major development. Our Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is standing by with that.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, here in our office at the Pentagon, we've been keeping track of what's happening with all the troop deployments. Of course there has been a lot of concern about the brazen looting and lawlessness, and we're now told by Pentagon officials that the National Guard will be mobilizing an additional 10,000 troops.
Now this comes at the orders of the governors of both Mississippi and Louisiana. About 5,000 going to each state within the next two days. Their primary job is going to be to augment law enforcement officials in order to help restore civil order in, particularly, in the areas where there's a problem, but there will also be other personnel as well -- medical, more help with heavy equipment and that sort of thing that's going to be needed.
But again, 10,000 already mobilized. This will be an additional 10,000 over the next two days. And again, National Guard troops are unique in that they can perform law enforcement functions alongside local police if that is ordered by the governor of the state. They're under state control. This is not something ordered by the Pentagon, under state control.
But we are told by Pentagon officials that will be happening over the next two days. So a doubling of the number of troops that will be available to help get New Orleans and the other affected areas back on their feet.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Jamie, thanks very much. Ten thousand more National Guard troops on the way.
I just want to walk over and show our viewers these pictures. These are live pictures coming in from New Orleans, right over there, live pictures of a fire under way in the French Quarter. Our video phone camera showing our viewers these pictures.
What a horrible scene on top of everything else, Jack Cafferty. Not only disease potential, floods, but fire, as well. Give us a little perspective, Jack. You and I have covered these kinds of stories for a long time.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: I just keep wondering, Wolf, when we're going to come to work and have a day where we can say, OK. Now we understand how big the story is. I don't think we're there yet. And I don't know when we're going to get there.
Every day this thing gets bigger and nastier and more heartbreaking. And the estimates of damage and death and destruction just continue to grow. Kathleen Koch's talking about a 78-mile piece of beach, which is the length of the coastline in Mississippi, gone. Eighty miles of beach destroyed. And that's just in Mississippi.
The damage in Alabama, New Orleans -- the mayor of New Orleans today has finally come out and said the death toll in his city alone could be in the thousands. And Jeanne Meserve says she doesn't find that at all hard to believe, and it could be many, many thousands based on what she's seeing firsthand.
You've got 2.5 million people that have no electricity of any kind. And they're saying it may be three months before power is restored. Think about what you use electricity for and think about doing without it for three months.
The damage to the area's economy is astronomical. There is no economy. There's no commerce. There's no banks, there's no ATMs. There's no business being done. There's nothing.
Structural damage estimated in the tens of billions of dollars. Tens of thousands of people are homeless. They're living in shelters, if they've been lucky enough to get into a shelter. Most of them will have no home to return to. They've lost everything -- their homes, their clothes, their car. Everything.
The question that a lot of people are going to have to answer in the next weeks and months as this thing continues to play out is this -- if you were wiped out by Katrina, would you attempt to rebuild or would you try to start over somewhere else?
And maybe some of the people watching have some ideas. CaffertyFile@CNN.com. Drop us a note and we'll read some of your thoughts on this. But I -- back to your original question, I want to come to work one day and say OK, they're going to quit telling me it's getting worse. We know the limits of this thing.
And I just don't feel like we're there yet.
BLITZER: Well, obviously, we're not there. You know, what was dawning on me, Jack -- and I'd be interested in your perspective -- we're talking about Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. And it sort of reminds me when we were in -- back in December and January talking about Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka and we were giving the body counts and the damage and the destruction from that tsunami. It's a parallel that I shudder to think about happening here in the United States.
CAFFERTY: Well, it's a parallel and yet in some ways it's not. The tsunami, Wolf, as I recall came ashore virtually unannounced and with very little, if any, warning.
We knew almost a week early that there was a hurricane that crossed the Florida Peninsula that re-intensified in the Gulf and was declared a Category 5 storm hours, if not a day or two, before it hit landfall. You know, hindsight's always 20/20, but you wonder, given the notice that we had that this thing was out there and it was getting to be just as deadly and nasty as they're capable of being, you wonder if more could have been done, should have been done to, you know, prepare to evacuate, to do some contingency planning.
I don't know. And I suppose there will be a lot of meetings to talk about this for a very long time. But you wonder, with, like I say, almost a week's notice from the time this thing crossed the Florida Peninsula if enough was done to protect the people in the path of this storm. And I don't know the answer to that.
BLITZER: I don't either, Jack. But we'll check back with you, Jack. Thank you very, very much. We're going to continue out extensive coverage, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
We're standing by. In about twenty minutes we expect the president to be addressing the American people from the Rose Garden of the White House. We'll bring that to you live. We'll also check in with our Ali Velshi. He's got word that U.S. Airlines are now beginning to think of what they can do to help the stranded.
We'll take a quick break. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
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BLITZER: The news is going from bad to worse, if you can imagine that. The mayor of New Orleans now suggesting perhaps thousands of people have died in his city alone. Everyone is getting ready to try to chip in. Let's check in with CNN's Ali Velshi in New York. You're getting word of some private businesses -- they want to help, as well.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. In fact, we heard from Louis Armstrong Airport that American Airlines had sent some planes in, bringing supplies in and taking out about 150 evacuees.
We've now got word that Southwest Airlines landed a plane at the airport in New Orleans, bringing ice, bottled water, flashlights and bug spray in; taking 20 to 40 evacuees out. We're also learning that FedEx and Northwest have flights scheduled for tomorrow. We continue to get news of airlines that are planning to go in and help out. So, they're doing their part.
BLITZER: What else are you seeing there from your vantage point? Because you just came back from the area. Give us a little insight.
VELSHI: Well, you know, I went in because -- I went in to see what was going on. I was in areas where we didn't have any even cell phone communication. But just to take a look what that infrastructure looks like.
Wolf, it was pretty bad. I wasn't in New Orleans. I didn't see the human devastation and it looked bad enough to me without seeing -- with out seeing people hurt. I went from Houston -- you see the dotted line into the Gulf of Mexico on to a rig called the Noble Max Smith.
We wanted a demonstration of what an evacuation would seem like. And of course, as you know, Wolf, we were on the air on Friday when they got the order to evacuate. So, we watched that happen and we were evacuated from that rig, went back to Houston.
And then from Houston, we went to Baton Rouge and down to Port Fourchon, which is where -- it's sort of like home base. It's the hub of activity for the Gulf Coast. And when I come back later, I'm going to show you some of the damage and devastation that we saw in Part Fourchon, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Ali. Thank you very much.
Let's head over to the White House. President Bush is now back in Washington. He's overseeing a meeting we're told this hour -- a meeting involving the federal government's response to the catastrophe that has happened along the Gulf Coast.
Let's go over to our Bob Franken. He's got some details -- what we can expect. Bob, we're also waiting for the president to go into the Rose Garden to effectively address the American public.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And he just arrived a couple of hours ago, coming back to the South Lawn, cutting short his vacation in Crawford, Texas. He went into the White House and not too long afterwards, convened that interagency meeting.
On the way here, Jeanne Meserve spoke a few moments ago about seeing what she thought was Air Force One overhead. It probably was Air Force One. The president was taken in a very quick aerial tour of the area, about 5,000 feet up.
We can see what it was that he saw. He described it, we're told by the reporters, as devastating, saying it was probably much worse on the ground. It is massive devastation. The interagency task force has already started up. The head of Homeland Security, Mike Chertoff called a news conference of a variety of cabinet agencies to say that this massive devastation will get a response that is matched.
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MICHAEL CHERTOFF, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We will work tirelessly to ensure that our fellow citizens have the sustained support and the necessary aid to recover and reclaim their homes, their lives and their communities.
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FRANKEN: And everybody knows that this is going to reverberate throughout the United States, affecting the national economy. Oil prices, gas prices are already expected to rise. With that in mind, the president has agreed to allow the release of some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve's crude oil.
The problem is going to be is getting it through the refineries that have also been shut down because of the storm. We're already seeing prices in the Washington area, for instance, over $3 a gallon. That's expected to be the norm in just a couple of days, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Bob, thanks very much. And we'll stand by to listen to the president and his remarks. That's coming up, we expect, in about 15 minutes or so.
The bishop of one New Orleans church delivered a Sunday sermon urging residents to get out of the city before Katrina struck and then he evacuated himself. Bishop Paul Morton of the Greater St. Stephen Baptist Church in New Orleans is joining us now from New York. Bishop, thanks very much for joining us.
BISHOP PAUL MORTON, ST. STEPHEN BAPTIST CHURCH: I'm glad to be here.
BLITZER: What are you hearing about your church? I understand you have about 20,000 congregants there.
MORTON: Yes, we have about to 20,000 members and we're one church in three locations. So with Greater St. Stephen, our east location, which is our largest location, we understand that, that's underwater. And that's why our uptown location -- I was glad when they said they were working on the breach, because that was going to be the next location. So I think we're looking pretty good there. And on the west bank location, we're looking pretty good right now.
BLITZER: What are you hearing from your members -- your congregants -- there must be -- if you can hear anything because communication with New Orleans is very, very difficult?
MORTON: And that is the difficult part. And it's very difficult for a pastor who loves his flock. I really wish that I could be right in New Orleans now, not to just be there to be there, but to really minister to people. I'm hearing from people away from New Orleans. And I guess my main concern right through here are people in New Orleans and what they're going through as it relates to our members and people that we love dearly, because New Orleans is just a family place.
BLITZER: What about your family and your home in New Orleans? What do you know about that?
MORTON: Yes. Well, I was in touch with the chief of police and we've been sharing on a daily basis. And of course of, our home is under water. But you know, I feel what people feel. And I think that this is why I can really minister to people because I can tell them look, I'm in with you. I'm dealing with this with you.
And so, I think what we're going to do, we're going to rebuild and we're going to make a difference. It hurts, but thank God for life, those lives that were spared; those that evacuated. I'm just concerned about those lives that are lost, but those of us that are left, we've got to rebuild. We're going to rebuild New Orleans.
BLITZER: We were showing our viewers some live pictures. We still have those live pictures from the French Quarter, an area you're probably very familiar with. A fire erupted there in one store. Firefighters got to the scene, water on the streets.
They finally got the hoses working. It looks like they've managed to put that fire out. My heart goes out to all these people, bishop. Give us a final thought on this horrible, horrible day.
MORTON: You know and as -- I think what we need to understand and as soon as we get in there, we're going to do what we can to help. I appreciate -- we've been hearing from pastors all around the country and of course the organization that I'm a part of, the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, they're taking the lead in bringing money, clothes, everything that is going to be necessary for people.
All I'm telling people now, don't get discouraged. Stay away from New Orleans right now. It's going to come together. I know you're worried about your home, worried about some family members, but I just believe and we're praying for you that God will give you the strength. And as we work together -- God left us here for a reason -- it's going to work.
BLITZER: Let's pray and hope and thank you very much, Bishop Paul Morton.
MORTON: Bless you.
BLITZER: Good luck to all your members. Good luck to everyone in New Orleans and Mississippi -- in Louisiana and Alabama. A horrible, horrible situation, unfolding. The president, meeting right now with his top advisers. They're coming together to try to come up with a plan to deal with the aftermath of this hurricane.
We'll go to the White House momentarily, to hear what the president has to say. He'll be addressing the American public from the Rose Garden.
Our special coverage, here in THE SITUATION ROOM, will continue in a moment.
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BLITZER: We're standing by to hear from the president of the United States. He'll be in the Rose Garden at the top of the hour. He's been meeting with his top advisers to come up with a plan to deal with the enormity of this tragedy that has affected the Gulf Coast, perhaps thousands of people according to the mayor of New Orleans, perhaps thousands of people in that city alone are dead. We'll wait for the president. We'll get more on this hurricane.
But I want to bring in CNN's Zain Verjee at the CNN Center. Zain, as bad as this situation is, there's another horrible, horrible disaster that has occurred today in Baghdad. Update our viewers.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I want to do that, Wolf. The death toll of those killed in a stampede in Iraq has risen to 965. It happened after panic broke out at a Shia religious procession on this bridge. Most of those killed were women and children. They were trampled. Many of them jumping off the bridge and into the Tigris River. Some of them swam to safety, but many drowned.
Officials said that there were rumors that a suicide bomber was nearby. And that's what triggered the panic and caused the stampede and the bridge itself also to collapse.
Earlier on in the day, the pilgrims came under mortar attacks. They were essentially heading to a mosque northwest of Baghdad where one of their imams is buried. So, this was a religious pilgrimage, something that Shias were not free to do under Saddam Hussein. So there were many, many hundreds of thousands of people making their way for this pilgrimage. But 965 people dead is the new death toll.
BLITZER: Nearly 1,000 dead in Baghdad alone on this one day. Zain, thank you very much.
More now on Hurricane Katrina. Each hour we're finding more and more stories and information about this hurricane and its aftermath online.
Our Internet reporter Abbi Tatton is checking the situation online. What are you finding, Abbi?
ABBI TATTON, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: We're going now, Wolf, to downtown New Orleans where Michael Barnett is spending his fourth day in his tenth-story office building. A 27-story building. He's on the tenth floor there.
Can show you now on Google Earth, he's about six blocks away from the Mississippi River. He decided it was safer to spend the storm there than evacuate in the city and he's not going anywhere.
He's also pointing a web cam out of the window so people can see what's going on there. You can see that this is an area of town that's come off relatively well. It's not flooded here Poteroff (ph) Street six blocks away from the Mississippi in downtown New Orleans.
But some of the buildings around there, the structural integrity is fine of those buildings, but they've suffered lots of broken windows. If we go back to the blog now, this is Michael's building at his blog, which is a Live Journal. His user name is Interdictor. You can find it online.
Smashed windows all over his building here. But he's not leaving, he's saying. What he posted last night, and this shows the resilience, is that he would drink the funky quart of sludge in the gutters of Bourbon Street before he abandons his city, Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Abbi, thank you very much. We'll check back with you with the situation online. We're also going to check in with Jack Cafferty in just a moment. Remember, we're standing by. The president about to tell the American public what he himself is doing about this tragedy, this crisis, this catastrophe along the Gulf Coast. We'll be right back.
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BLITZER: Let's go right to Jack Cafferty in New York. He's been getting responses to his question this hour. What do our viewers think, Jack?
CAFFERTY: The decision a lot of people, Wolf, are going to have to make in the weeks and months ahead is whether or not to try to go back and rebuild, assuming they were wiped out by Katrina -- and a lot of people have been -- or start over somewhere else. And that sounds like an easy thing to decide, given the devastation and destruction, but it's a little tough to back away from home.
The viewers are writing literally by the thousands. We have gotten over 4,000 e-mails since we went on the air at 3:00.
Fateen in Atlanta, Georgia writes, "New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. To build a coastal city well below sea level between a river and a lake and in a hurricane-prone area defies logic. We must learn from our mistakes. We are not America the invincible. I would not rebuild. I couldn't possibly think of living through such a disaster twice."
Craig in Dublin, Ohio writes, "No question, I'd be out of there. Who's to say another hurricane won't hit there again."
Leon writes, "It'll take too long, cost too much to rebuild. The city is below sea level. This has been coming for 40 years. It's just not worth the cost, relocate the refugees."
Loren, though, says this, "How can any reasonable person suggest we don't rebuild? The city of New Orleans has meant as much to the development and continued prosperity of this nation as any other place, perhaps more. I was the last person to board a plane out on Sunday. I want to be the first one on the first plane back in." And Jane writes one of my favorite e-mails of this day. "Will someone please find Rudy Giuliani, and put him on a plane to New Orleans?" A reference, of course, to his superhuman leadership of New York City during the terrorist attacks on September 11 when he was the mayor of this great burg here.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Jack, thanks very much. We're going to check back with you shortly as well.
It's nearly 5:00 p.m. here in Washington, D.C. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM where news and information from across the hurricane zone are arriving simultaneously. We're waiting to hear from the president of the United States momentarily. He'll be in the Rose Garden.
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