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The Situation Room
New Orleans Residents Search For Home Away From Home; Senate Plans Disaster Response Probe
Aired September 06, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM, where news and information arrive at one place simultaneously. Standing by, CNN reporters across the hurricane zone to bring you the complete coverage on the state of emergency.
Happening now, in New Orleans, they are battling flames and flooding and beginning to bring out the bodies, amid fears of what receding waters will reveal.
Away from the disaster areas, evacuees in shelter, will they find new homes far from home?
And what went wrong? The president says he'll lead an investigation, but senators are planning their own probe of what they call government failures.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
All along the Gulf Coast, it's mission critical in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Firefighters from New York join their hard- pressed local counterparts in New Orleans. Coast Guard helicopters also helped out. They are dropping buckets of water from above. As rescuers use shallow boat air -- shallow-draft air boats to search for survivors, paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division will use their own small boats to launch a new rescue effort in New Orleans.
And a city official says the floodwater in New Orleans is now contaminated with E coli bacteria, which can lead to serious illness and death when found in drinking water.
Other developments in the state of emergency we're following right now.
First, the evacuation. New Orleans Police say fewer than 10,000 people are left in the city; 240,000 storm evacuees have now reached Texas, but a health official there says a health emergency has been declared. Four hundred evacuees have just arrived here in the nation's capital. They will be sheltered in the D.C. Armory.
As far as security is concerned, the Pentagon now says 58,000 active-duty and National Guard personnel are deployed in the disaster area. Three hundred U.S. military helicopters have also been deployed. Mississippi authorities say at least 100 looting suspects could face prison terms of up to 15 years. Let's check the power situation in the region. More than 350,000 customers are still without electricity in Mississippi. Alabama is faring the best, with electricity restored to all but 2,500 customers. The mayor of New Orleans says it could take eight weeks to restore power there.
In New Orleans, it's all about the water, at least right now, unspeakably foul, dangerously polluted. It is receding, as engineers start pumping. But, ironically, water is not necessarily readily available to fight the raging fires which have broken out in many parts of the city. And the flooding is making search-and-rescue operations very difficult, indeed.
Let's go live to New Orleans. Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is standing by. Nic?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, you talk about the fires. Just this morning before we really got to work, I saw a fire in the -- that had been started in a basement of a house. A candle, we were told, in the basement of the house started that fire. But now I'm looking at a fire looking eastwards down the Mississippi here.
And if you look over to the fire there, it is burning very, very strongly at the moment. You can see -- you might just be able to make out there are two helicopters trying to put out that fire. There will likely be firefighters on the ground.
This is what we saw this morning with the fire that we witnessed there. And we can see it happening again here. You can see the helicopter coming through the back there. It's red. The helicopter spinning round. You see a long, long way beneath it, you see a big sort of bucket. Now, that -- that helicopter is going to fly through the smoke, swoop down towards the water and fill that bucket up with water.
We will just watch that happen. Now, what it's going to do, it will dip down and it will dip that bucket into the Mississippi. It will pick it up full of water and fly it back over the fire.
We saw that at the fire this morning. It's happening here again. There it goes. It's dipping down. The bucket is in the water. The helicopter is just hovering just above the water there. It's going to rise up, pull up that bucket of water, huge bucket of water, and take it over towards the fire.
Now, there are -- I count at the moment about 10 helicopters in the air here, many of them flying rescue missions. One of the things that has been needed for those helicopters, if we can pan around now and look the other direction down the Mississippi here, we can look down to the Coast Guard shift, the USS Iwo Jima.
And, as I'm looking down there now, I can see a helicopter just landing on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima. What that ship is doing here, it has been brought down from its normal base in Norfolk. It is down here to provide an additional helicopter platform. It's also providing accommodation for some of the rescue and recovery workers who are working here in the city.
But 300 helicopters, you say, deployed in the area. I counted at least 10 in the air here just now. We are also expecting other military ships to be arriving here, if we -- the cameraman is just able -- Dominick (ph) is able to pan just off left there from the USS Iwo Jima, you see another ship, another military ship, steaming into the city here, or, rather, coming into the city here.
We're not sure exactly what this vessel is going to do. But we do know that the USNS Comfort, normally based in Baltimore, a hospital ship, is expected here in the city quite soon, so more military ships here. The helicopters (INAUDIBLE) just buzzing low overhead, about 10 of them.
And what we have heard from the mayor today -- we are here by the Mississippi, but not far over the levee to the right of me, the mayor has had the floodwater in the city tested. It was positive for the E coli bacteria. That is an indication that raw sewage is getting into the floodwater here. And that can mean very serious illness and the possibility of death. And the mayor is saying that he is renewing his mandatory evacuation order for the residents of this city who are close to the floodwaters.
Wolf.
BLITZER: I suspect, Nic, a lot of the people who are determined to try to stay in New Orleans simply don't understand how dangerous it is, even if they swallow a little bit of that water, that floodwater, and it's infected with the E coli, it could -- it could not only debilitate them, but it could potentially even kill them.
As far as the fires which are erupting throughout parts of New Orleans, one of the things I simply have not understood is why, over this past week, they haven't brought in some of the real aircraft that can drop large amounts of water at one time, like they use in the forest fires, and just use those aircraft to stop some of these -- some of these fires. It seems like a very, very slow method to pick up these buckets of water from the Mississippi and try to drop them piecemeal on the fires.
But that's an issue I'm sure local and state, federal authorities are thinking about. At least I hope they are thinking about that.
How prevalent? How widespread are these fires, because you have seen them up close for the past several days?
ROBERTSON: Wolf, I have. And the one that we looked at this morning perhaps gives an indication to your first question there: Why not use the aircraft that can drop more water are used on the forest fires? Again, I wouldn't want to second-guess officials here, but those aircraft often, the spread of water is over quite a large area.
The fire that we saw this morning was burning in one house. It had set fire to the neighboring house. But with the buckets of water, the helicopters are able to direct that drop of water very accurately on to that relatively small fire, unlike a forest fire, for example. Again, I wouldn't want to second-guess officials on this one, but that's what we're seeing.
Now, the firefighters we saw today fighting that fire do seem to have adopted a new method of putting out the fires. This was something we saw them use for the first time at the weekend. They have these 7,000-gallon water trucks now that accompany the firefighters to the water, because there isn't water in the hydrants, difficult for the firefighters to fill their tenders.
And what they are doing is, they have a big pipe that runs from the huge truck with that 7,000-gallon water container on it, feeds into the firefighters' engine. Then that is played on to the fire. And that's something new that we have seen developed here just in the last few days, Wolf.
BLITZER: The -- that's a good point about the small houses. You don't want to drop water that's going to destroy neighboring houses that may not necessarily need it.
I was referring to some of the earlier big fires at some of the warehouses and some of the industrial areas that had erupted over the past few days. That seemed to me to cry out for a big aircraft to come in and drop a boatload of water on it and try to deal with it in that way.
Nic, stand by for a moment, because I want to bring in our Christiane Amanpour. She is in one -- she has been to one small Louisiana town. A mortuary is being set up to receive the bodies from New Orleans. And there are some fears that the number of dead brought there will exceed the local population.
Christiane, you have been on the scene for us. What are you learning?
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the water rescue that we told you about yesterday showed clearly that there are still bodies floating around in New Orleans' floodwaters.
And now they are going to try to bring them out -- and they already are doing so -- in refrigerated trucks to this mortuary that's been set up, basically a temporary morgue in what was a warehouse, a 125,000-square-foot warehouse, in a tiny town called Saint Gabriel's, which is much closer to here in Baton Rouge than it is to New Orleans.
In fact, it's about 70 miles outside of New Orleans. And that, we are told by the mayor, they chose that location because of its remote location and because there is this massive amount of space in order to set up a temporary morgue.
Inside, you can see that they are already partitioning it off. They're making sections for receiving these bodies. They have got refrigeration units. They have got 100 staff there who are prepared, we're told, to work 24 hours a day for as long as it takes to process what they think will be thousands of bodies.
They say that they can process and identify about 130 to 150 per day. But they are very, very concerned that families should not come to this place to look for their friends, relatives and those who are missing, because this is not the place where families are going to receive the remains of the dead.
Here, they are just going to fingerprint, take X-rays, and take DNA samples. And after they have done that, the federal officials at FEMA, they are going to hand the bodies back, turn them over to the officials of Louisiana State, and there on to families for burial.
So, this is going to be a very long, complicated and torturous process, because in many cases the bodies are decomposed and it may not be -- it may just be small amounts of DNA that will be able to identify them.
But the process is beginning. We saw even as we were there several large refrigerated trucks, one of them coming in with a police escort, bodies coming in. They are already working, the medical examiners in that mortuary in the warehouse at Saint Gabriel's.
We talked to members, residents of that town, a poor town, essentially, who told us, you know, some of them had resisted this initially. We couldn't find anybody who resisted it today, many of them saying, look, you know, it's what we have to do. We have been chosen to do this. It's the least we can do to give the families some dignity, as their dead relatives and friends are processed and hopefully eventually laid to rest.
The mayor told us that, because it's a national state of emergency, that the federal government, FEMA in this case, has the right to actually take over this property and use it for this emergency reason. Although they have done that, they have done it in conjunction with the mayor and the local officials in that very small and very poor town.
Wolf.
BLITZER: Did you get a body count so far, how many bodies have actually arrived there, Christiane?
AMANPOUR: No, And they were very, very strict today. Although they gave us some verbal information, they would not tell us anything about body counts.
They say, though, they may in the coming days and maybe even later today, when they start holding, they tell us, regular press conferences, which will include what is happening at the morgue. But they -- they haven't told us the precise number. All we can tell you is that we did see ourselves about four trucks coming in. And there are probably scores that have come in those refrigerated trucks, and that they expect there to be thousands.
BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour reporting for us. Thanks, Christiane. We will get back to you as well.
Jack Cafferty is joining us from New York with some thoughts on what is going on. Jack? JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: One of the New York tabloids was estimating the death toll in New Orleans alone, Wolf, could reach 10,000. That was a headline I looked at on the way down here this morning.
In the wake of last week's monumental government screw-up, everybody and his brother now are screaming for an investigation -- senators, congressmen, even the president -- all vowing to get to the bottom of the Katrina boondoggle. But letting government investigate itself is sort of like putting John Dillinger in charge of the bank vault. We didn't begin to get an inkling of the truth behind 9/11 until an independent commission examined the fact.
Senator Hillary Clinton wants an independent investigation. But ultimately, that will be up to President Bush.
Here's the question. Should there be an independent investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina? CaffertyFile -- one word -- @CNN.com. Read some of your letters in a half-hour or so.
BLITZER: Hillary Clinton, the senator from New York, the junior senator, Jack, will be speaking this hour. We will monitor what she is saying. We may even go there live. Jack, we will get back to you in a little while.
There's a new source of help for the tens of thousands of hurricane victims who have lost their homes. Coming up, relocating online.
Plus, evacuees land in the nation's capital. Their travels and stories, that's coming up.
And how much aid is coming into the Gulf Coast from overseas? We will get an update on which countries are helping America in its time of need.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Just a little while ago, we captured this dramatic video of a rescue operation in New Orleans. Watch and listen to J.T. Alpaugh, the reporter/photographer aboard the helicopter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) three two one, alpha. We -- that is Calvin (ph). And he's saying he doesn't want to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After all this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. OK. Roger. Tell him that we have Kim (ph). We have Kim at the command post and we can -- we're going to take him to Kim and that he has to go and there's no reason to stay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger. Are there some other issues with this gentleman we should know about that he might not want to be following directions?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None that we know of, sir. We're talking directly to his wife. And I don't know if he knows that we have his wife. But we can reunite him with his wife and his son and his daughter, who are at our command post.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that. Stand by.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, 6033, I think his biggest concern is losing his -- his livelihood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: That chopper pilot who was in the water trying to urge those individuals to leave their home, it's dangerous there, and to join him and to be hoisted up into that helicopter. They adamantly refused that rescue operation. They are determined to stay put.
We are going to continue to watch what is happening in all of these rescue operations, attempted rescue operations, in New Orleans.
Only a little while ago, within the past hour, the Defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, held a briefing, a news conference, over at the Pentagon.
I want to bring in our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. They were both hammered pretty hard with questions, Jamie. Update our viewers who are just tuning in what we learned and what we didn't learn.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we didn't hear from the Pentagon was any concession that the U.S. military response to the disaster on the ground as it was unfolding last week was anything less than the best that could be done, given the magnitude of the circumstances that they were facing.
We heard high praise of the military's efforts and a defense of how the Pentagon began to move things, even before there was any request and move things in they said basically as fast as they could, as they adjusted to a changing situation.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld himself had high praise for the Herculean efforts of the U.S. military.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The greatest disaster recovery effort in America's history is well under way. What General Myers and I saw in Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Mississippi was Americans doing what Americans do best. And that's coming together and finding ways to help those in need.
The Department of Defense plays a supporting role to the Department of Homeland Security, as do the other departments and agencies in the federal government. However, the support we're providing is substantial. And General Myers...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Now, one of the things the Pentagon said they would do is a lessons-learned review of everything that has gone on to see what they could do better.
But one thing they wouldn't answer today is why we didn't see helicopters airdropping food earlier, before Thursday, back on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, when the situation at the Louisiana Superdome was pretty desperate. They did say that they had to put the priority on saving lives.
But our reporters on the ground at the Superdome reported people were dying there for lack of water, in particular elderly people who were in great distress. Again, the Pentagon said they had to set priorities, had to adjust to what was on the ground.
They are going to be looking at I guess whether there were enough helicopters, whether somebody was thinking ahead enough, whether there were obstacles of getting it on the ground, whether there was enough security. Those are all things they will review. But still no real explanation for why those airdrops, which really began on Thursday and on into later in the week, didn't start a couple of days earlier.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Jamie, I'm going to check back with you in a little while. Thanks very much.
Some good news coming from the Department of the Interior on oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Let's check in our Ali Velshi. He's watching the situation. Ali?
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's not good news that is going to help a lot of people who are still without power and needing to be rescued in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
But right now, we have got gas prices on Capitol Hill. There's some testimony, the Department of Energy suggesting that gas prices will ease back within the next few weeks. We have got oil closing about $1.67 lower right now. A lot of oil platforms suffering no damage, and offshore oil production in the Gulf, Wolf, up to about 40 percent of normal levels right now, getting online very quickly.
That pipeline, by the way, that has caused a lot of the high gas prices in the Northeast, back operating at 100 percent capacity.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, thanks, Ali. We are going to get back to you as well.
Many of the evacuees may no longer be hungry, but most are certainly homeless. Coming up, with most homes destroyed in the storm, how can you find shelter if you're one of the victims? And what about donating housing to evacuees? We will tell you what you can do.
Much more of our special coverage, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's now well after a week, and the disaster continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: State officials in Louisiana have been outspoken about the dire straits in their state and about their views that the federal government simply did not respond quickly enough.
Louisiana's Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu is joining us now live from Baton Rouge.
Lieutenant Governor, thanks very much for joining us. As I get used to saying -- but, unfortunately, I have to -- I wish it were under different circumstances. What is the latest information you have on the number of dead in Louisiana?
LT. GOV. MITCH LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: Well, we don't really have any good information on that.
As you know, and I have said often, this is an American tragedy. We're in the first part. The first part was saving lives, evacuating, medevacing folks who need it. That seems to be moving in the right direction and well on its way to some finality.
However, the second phase of this will be finding out exactly how many casualties we have. As you know, this storm was one of epic proportions. So, we are expecting the deaths to be significant. We won't know the full scale of that until the water actually is drained out of the areas where it is still standing in a very deep way.
BLITZER: This number of 10,000 has been thrown around a lot lately. Is that realistic, do you think? Or is that relatively low?
LANDRIEU: Wolf, you know, it's really hard to know. Really, nothing would surprise me at this point. We don't really have a hard figure on how many people actually were left in the storm that were evacuated from some of the low-lying areas like St. Bernard, Plaquemine, of course, Lakeview, the New Orleans East, all of the areas.
The folks nationally refer to this as New Orleans, but truly it's a metropolitan area that involves nine parishes. And we're trying to figure out in each one of those what the potential casualty rate is going to be. But we're not going to know that for some time.
And, as you know, the levee breached. The pumps were down. I think they are really getting close to fixing that problem. And when that happens, the second phase of this will start, which I think is going to be more difficult than the first.
BLITZER: Why do you say that? Talk a little bit about why this next phase that we're about to go through is going to be even more painful and difficult.
LANDRIEU: Well, because -- because the death rate is going to be very obvious to us.
Now we're speculating. We know of some of the deaths from the storm, people that didn't evacuate, that got left, people that weren't able to make it out early, people that drowned. And we know a little bit about that. But we don't know how many people were caught in their attics. There were long stories of people being caught in 16, 17, 18 feet of water. And, of course, we're not going to know that until we go down every street, through every home, and try to figure what that is going to be.
But there are many people that are in shelters throughout this country who are separated from their families. They don't know if their families are in other shelters. And they don't know whether there have been casualties. And so, as you can just understand what that anxiety would be like, when they find out that, in fact, some of their loved ones have perished in this terrible storm, how difficult that's going to be for us, because the grieving process is going to start. It's going to be a pretty large number. And it's going to be very hard for us.
BLITZER: What's the current estimate, Lieutenant Governor, as to how long it will take to get all the floodwater out of the city?
LANDRIEU: Well, as you know, this wasn't just one storm. It was three catastrophes in a row. It was the hurricane. Then it was the floods. Then it was the breach of the levee, which doubled the floods.
And, as soon as that breach is fixed -- and I'm told that they are very close to getting it done -- and the pumps get turned on, they estimate that it's going to take somewhere between 15 to 30 days. I think it might go a little bit faster than that. But, again, we are in uncharted territory. We have never had to do this before. So, we are really not sure.
BLITZER: Is there anything you urgently need from the federal government right now that you are not getting?
LANDRIEU: No. About a day-and-a-half ago, this thing turned in a very positive direction. It's been well-documented. There's been a little bit -- a lot of talk of who the angels and who the demons are. I would really like that to happen another day.
Congress does hearings really well. I would expect that they are going to do these in a very aggressive way. But, right now, what -- we have been focused in on saving lives, evacuating people. And now we need to be about thinking, how are we going to get these folks back into jobs and businesses?
There's a huge federal presence here right now, the regular Army, the National Guard, the state police, Wildlife and Fisheries. State officials and federal officials seem to be working much better together today. And this thing is moving in the right direction.
However, let me -- let me say this very clearly. The response from the American people to the people of Louisiana has been tremendous. And we are very thankful for all of it. But the hard work about rebuilding this metropolitan area is yet to come. And the promise of America is to take care of the tired and poor. And if anybody fits that definition, those of us do.
This is an American tragedy. It requires an American response. And I'm hopeful that this nation will step up to the plate and really fulfill its promise to rebuild one of the great crown jewels that this country has to offer the world.
BLITZER: One final quick question, Lieutenant Governor. Some of the big fires in the industrial areas of New Orleans, the warehouses, why not bring in some of those big aircraft that are used to fight forest fires and just dump a lot of water on it and end it once and for all? We see these helicopters picking up buckets full and dropping them on houses, but you have available those forest fire aircraft. Why not use those?
LANDRIEU: Listen, I'm not an expert at that. But for me, whatever works we ought to do. There were some great stories and heroic efforts of people on the street helping each other. We just kind of patch things together as much as we can. And like we do in a storm that's very personal for us, everybody gets in. So, if that works, I'm all for it and I hope the guys , that the experts can figure it out quick.
BLITZER: The lieutenant governor of Louisiana, Mitch Landrieu. Thanks very much for joining us. Good luck to you. Good luck to everyone in Louisiana.
LANDRIEU: Thank you.
BLITZER: Appreciate it very much.
From the most powerful to the most impoverished, countries around the world are stepping up and offering hurricane aid. Our Zain Verjee is following that part of the story. She's joining us from the CNN Center. Zain?
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, there are so many countries offering help saying, look, we've got the aid. Give us the green light and we'll come and deliver it.
The U.S. is saying, the offers are very generous, but just hold on a sec. It says that it needs to figure out who needs what first and then match it to the donations that have been offered.
Now, 23 countries from the European Union are offering money, meals ready to eat, blankets and tents as well -- like Germany, for example. It's offering also to help with evacuations, medical services, even water treatment assistance. Just today, a Luftwaffe cargo plane left Cologne in Germany bound for the United States with 16 tons of emergency goods on board.
So far Germany has sent 40 tons of relief supplies. Now, some of the aid that arrived like high-speed water pumps from Germany, hasn't been deployed yet. An E.U. official said today that they have been - quote -- "coordination problems in the U.S." In Arkansas, the first relief flight from abroad arrived at Little Rock Air Force Base. Officials there have now designated that facility as the hub for all international air shipments. This plane you're seeing here, came from Britain loaded with food rations. The U.K. is also pledging technical expertise including search and rescue, water management, as well as port handling.
And also today, we had New Zealand coming forward pledging $1.4 million in cash aid. The country is also offering to send urban search and rescue crews to the hurricane zone, as well as specialists in victim identification.
Now Bangladesh, it's really one of the poorest countries in the world. It falls victim to floods all the time. Still, Bangladesh is coming forward today, pledging aid to the United States. The foreign ministry just announced a $1 million donation. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia called it - quote -- "A token of goodwill and sympathy." Bangladesh has been a major recipient of U.S. aid in the past.
Even Venezuela, coming forward to offer help, too, Wolf. President Hugo Chavez has been a very vocal critic of United States policies and he and the Bush administration are on testy terms. But Mr. Chavez has offered to send humanitarian aid and relief workers to the hardest hit areas. He has also offered to sell the U.S. discounted fuel.
And that's just some perspective on some of the more than 60 countries and organizations that have come forward to help.
BLITZER: Who would have ever thought the United States, in need of foreign aid? Zain, thank you very much for that update.
In New Orleans, right now, ordinary problems are requiring extraordinary measures to confront. Coming up, we'll speak about fighting the fires in New Orleans. There is water to fight the flames, but none of it is clean -- not very clean, at least -- and there's no pressure to pump it.
We'll tell you how crews are battling the blazes -- tell you what's going on. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: In New Orleans, another disturbing dilemma -- very disturbing indeed. How do you fight fires in the city without running water? Right now, some wooden structures in the Garden District are burning and there's little clean water and no water pressure for all practical purposes.
Heath Allen of our CNN affiliate WDSU is joining us now live with more. Heath, what's going on?
HEATH ALLEN, WDSU REPORTER: Well, the situation, as you say, is a very critical one at this point, because when a fire breaks out for whatever reason, the fire department can respond. And they do have pumpers that they fill up, but that water runs out pretty quickly. Then they have to resort to -- you heard the lieutenant governor a moment ago, you all were talking about whether or not you would fight them as you would fight a forest fire out west. Well, that was exactly what they were doing this morning.
Helicopters were filling up those huge bags with water and then bringing them back into the city and dropping those bags of water directly on to the fire. Once that water in those pumpers runs out, you don't have any more water and that's the only way to fight that fire.
They can go ahead and refill those pumpers as often as they can, but just before we walked out here to do this, another fire had broken out and you could hear the concern and consternation in the voices of the dispatchers because once those pumpers get on the scene and once they're pumped out, then they have to resort to those helicopters with the big bag of water.
As you say, the water is not necessarily clean, but we do have the Mississippi River, a pretty constant water supply flowing near by. So, they are able to go ahead and fill up, get airborne, drop the water, you know, on the fires that are burning.
The biggest problem that we have right now -- I don't know if you can tell, but there's a nice breeze blowing, which is a real pleasant relief to those of us down here where it has been 95, 96 degrees in the wake of this hurricane. But boy, what a problem it is for firefighters, because once one of those wooden structures gets burning, as we saw in the Garden District a little bit earlier, those embers just hit the air flow (ph). And they drop wherever they want to drop. And what is it? It's fire after fire after fire. And they have to try to be able to respond to all (ph). It felt like 9/11 (INAUDIBLE) caused by an ember --
BLITZER: We are losing you, Heath. You're coming in and out, Heath. Health Allen, you're coming in and out. We're getting some hits in that satellite report. Heath Allen, of our affiliate WDSU. We're going to check back with Heath. He was providing us with some useful information on how to deal with these fires.
Let's get a little bit more on what's going on, especially in the Garden District of New Orleans.
Tom Foreman is here to help us better understand that. Tom, you spent a long time working and reporting from New Orleans. So, you know this area well.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Heath Allen was one of my old running partners down there in local news for a long time.
BLITZER: Could he keep up with you?
FOREMAN: He outran me. He did a great job.
Listen, the Garden District is important, and that's where we've had two big fires today. Important areas. We're going fly in and take a look at one of them here and it'll give us an idea of what we're talking about. This is the area that we're flying into. It's a historic part of town.
People often say the Garden District. What they are really referring to for most people, is uptown. There is a specific area that's called the Garden District. And one of the big fires that we're going into right now -- this one that we're looking at on right here, was in the edge of the Garden District proper.
Look, there's the building right now -- Camp Street, St. Andrew's Street.
Why is this important? Well, it's important, obviously, to the people who are there and continuing tragedy. But it's also important because this entire area, when you look at this giant blaze here. That's the building right there, with that red roof on the top. When you look at this, you can see that's it's fairly close to the other buildings.
But throughout this region, there are a tremendous number of houses all clustered around. And many of them -- now we're moving over here to the pure Garden District, as it's officially known in the area. Many of these houses are 100 years old, 150 years old, made of wood, easy ignitable. They're right on top of each other. And a fire in this area could spread very quickly.
The fact is, even before this hurricane, when you had a fire uptown or in the French Quarter, people in New Orleans took it very, very seriously. And we had two today. That one there and then a little bit further down. If I widen that, you can see, there's downtown. The first fire was right here. The other one was up in this area, much closer to Audubon Park. So you can also see how close the river is.
One of the reasons they're using these wildland fire-fighting techniques here is they got plenty of water in New Orleans right now. It's the perfect thing. You drop the buckets in here, short, quick flight. You can drop and you can target very specifically where you're putting it. And in this circumstance, it's what they've got to do.
I told you several days ago, Wolf, right now, in terms of the continuing tragedy, the floodwaters still matter. We're going to be obviously pulling people out of there for a long, long time. That's tragic and terrible.
But keeping the fires under control is a big, big thing because New Orleans is the kind of town that can burn in a very big way. The French Quarter, before 1800, completely burned to the ground twice in a short period of time. And people know that many of the buildings have been there a long time. Same thing could happen again.
BLITZER: Just a little while ago, our chopper reporter J.T. Alpaugh had this. And I want our viewers and you, Tom, to watch this videotape.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) J.T. ALPAUGH, POOL PHOTOGRAPHER: We have another helicopter that's going to be coming in, giving you a drop here that we're going to give you live. There he is. That's a CH-46 Chinook helicopter. Looking right after overhead. And you're going to see the precision of this drop. He's going to move a little further north here, toward this next fire to our right side of your screen.
He comes in. He's going to drop it right into that smoke area. As we push in just a little bit to show you this. Right overhead, he pulls that trigger on his cyclic (ph) and drops the water away. And we're going to stay with the waters as we push back, and Dave, and show you how it just douses that fire. Just the white heavy smoke coming out of there. Just a lot of water being dumped very surgically, right into that area.
BLITZER: And, Tom, we're going to show our viewers in a little while the entire process. How those helicopters -- they have these buckets, basically. They go into the river. They fill up the buckets with water, hopefully relatively clean water without a lot of fuel or oil in it, which could exacerbate a fire, as you know. They lift it from in there. They go out, as we just saw, dump the water. And then they go back and do it all over again. It looks like it's working.
FOREMAN: Yes. I'm delighted to see this happening. Because I've covered a lot of wildland forest fires. I know you have, too. And you see this sort of thing happening out there. And it really is the kind of adaptation you need in the circumstances. Really smart here, because they're still having a little trouble.
You can't see it here, but when you get out into these areas and these areas, you still got a lot of water in the streets. Hard to move fire trucks around, even if they have the facilities to pump from ground water. This is a much quicker way to do it.
And remember, uptown here, many of the things people love about New Orleans here. Magazine Street, which runs down in here, is covered with antique shops, places people love to go. St. Charles Avenue, the much, much renowned place. That's where you see the amazing mansion, the old streetcar lines. Up in this area is where you'll find Commander's Palace, a restaurant everybody knows. Old School, Sacred Heart Academy, over here. Tipatina's (ph) Nightclub down here. And, of course, the world famous Audubon Zoo, which largely escaped this whole thing with only a few trees down, which is really good news.
All of these, as we've said all along, important to the recovery of New Orleans. Actually, I'm delighted to see these wildland fire- fighting techniques being used, because, as they keep it under control, one step closer to recovery.
BLITZER: And one final thought. You have to keep it isolated to the building, because, as we know from lots of experiences, there are still people trapped in the upper levels of various homes there. And what you obviously don't want to see is fire spread, but you also don't want to see water that could further exacerbate, perhaps even kill them. FOREMAN: Yes. And we have no idea. I mean, one of the big questions here is, we really have no idea how many people are still in New Orleans and where they are. Not just in flooded areas, but uptown is largely dry. And I know our producers there said they found a lot of people uptown because their feeling was, well, it's dry, I'm OK here, I'll be all right.
BLITZER: Tom, we're going to check back with you. Thanks very much. Good stuff.
Up next, what went wrong with the disaster response? The president says he will lead one investigation. Senators are now saying they will start another investigation. Is all that enough? We'll hear what you think. Jack Cafferty is getting your e-mail. Stay with us.
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BLITZER: The president of the United States with the first lady and Justice -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. They just paid their respects to William Rehnquist, the late chief justice, in the Rotunda of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The body of the chief justice is lying in repose. There is the portrait of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80 years old. He died Saturday night. The president and first lady making the trip up to the U.S. Supreme Court from the White House to pay their respects.
The president has nominated John Roberts to become the next chief justice of the United States. The funeral for Chief Justice Rehnquist takes place tomorrow. Private ceremony at a Catholic Church, even though he is a Lutheran, will take place in Washington. And then, burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.
The Senate announcing earlier today that confirmation hearings for John Roberts will now begin Monday -- Monday, as opposed to Thursday -- Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We'll watch the story for you.
Meanwhile, back to the aftermath of the hurricane. Evacuees from the hurricane zone are now arriving here in Washington in the nation's capital at the city's Armory.
CNN's Brian Todd is there. He's joining us now live with an update. Brian?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this city's population has just grown by a little less than 200 people. That's how many people were on a planeload of evacuees that got here from New Orleans. We are told that are several more that are on the way in another planeload.
One of them is Mimi Carbery-Guste. She is with me now. She is a 30-year resident of the French Quarter.
Mimi, you got here -- we're losing a little bit of our power here, but bear with us. You got here by stopping a cop on the street yesterday. And take us through that. What happened then? MIMI CARBERY-GUSTE, NEW ORLEANS EVACUEE: Well, it was sort of interesting. I knew I wanted to leave. And yet, I didn't know how I was going to do it. And I had taken several chances and they just didn't pan out. Didn't feel right. And a lovely police person said, can you be ready in an hour? And I said, well, sure. So I had a neighbor who really needed to get out. And pardon my voice. Hi, Mama. It's been a long 36 hours. That was yesterday at 1:15.
TODD: Keep going, it's OK.
CARBERY-GUSTE: We then loaded at 2:15, got to the Convention Center. Interestingly, it was very well-coordinated.
TODD: But they never told you exactly where you were going, right?
CARBURY-GUSTE: Well my downstairs neighbor, who is a little older, passed out of heatstroke, which by the way we may do here. It's a little warm in Washington. So he was medically taken care of. And they did a beautiful job in that. Then we got into the helicopter and there were kids and all mixes of age, race, ethnicity.
TODD: And then you took off. When did you take off from the airport and got here?
CARBURY-GUSTE: We got to the airport at 5:00. We left -- that's the New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport -- and we left there at about 9:00 this morning. So spent the night really getting to know people when you're in that situation, and I can't tell you generosity of spirit, no problems. If there were problems we laughed them away. The National Guard was fantastic.
TODD: We have got to get, actually, get back to Wolf. Thank you, Mimi, very much. Good luck to you. She is going to try to hook up with some relatives in the Washington area, and then go from there.
CARBURY-GUSTE: We can't wait to see the French Quarter back as soon as possible.
TODD: Thank you, Mimi, very much.
CARBURY-GUSTE: Sure.
TODD: Wolf, back to you.
BLITZER: They love New Orleans. Rightfully so. Brian Todd, thank you very much. Wish Mimi the best of luck on all of our behalf.
For days you have seen the images right here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Aerials of the aftermath of an awful storm. Coming up, we'll talk to the helicopter reporter who has been flying over the disaster zone, J.T. Alpaugh. He's been taking these incredible pictures. He'll join us live.
Much more. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
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BLITZER: Let's check back with Jack Cafferty. He's been reading your e-mail. What are you coming up with?
CAFFERTY: The question this hour is, should there be an independent investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
We get this from Wallace. "George Bush's suggestion that he will investigate the Katrina fiasco is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have heard all week, and that's saying a lot given the week it's been. Everyone involved: Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Chertoff and, yes, the president himself, should have their actions judged by an independent, impartial and competent commission."
Bethany in Knoxville, Tennessee. "There should absolutely be an investigation into what happened and why after Katrina, but that investigation should be long-delayed. Right now the most important thing should be out banding together to bring all the relief we can to Katrina's victims."
Kathleen in Antioch, Illinois. "Most certainly there should be an independent investigation. If I hear one more time let's not play the blame game I'm going to scream. Where are our taxes going? All I hear from officials are do-nothing, thankfest press conferences."
Rick in St. Louis writes, "Yes. At the least it should not be led by George W. Bush. Bush heading the investigation on what went wrong last week would be like Ken Lay investigating Enron."
And Bill in Raleigh, North Carolina. "No investigation needed. Just give Medals of Freedom to DHS Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Brown. Then put them on a New Orleans rooftop for three days with no food or water."
I like that idea.
BLITZER: All right, Jack. Thank you very much. We'll get back to you in a few minutes for the next hour's question.
Coming up, a view from the air of the hurricane disaster zone. We'll get a live update from a helicopter reporter who has been flying over the rescue and recovery efforts in New Orleans. Stay with us.
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BLITZER: The markets are getting ready to close. We have seen the effect Katrina is having on gas prices. What about the aftermath on your wallet?
Let's check in with CNN's Ali Velshi in New York once again. Ali, what's going on?
VELSHI: Well we're just getting news now that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has suggested after meeting with the president that there will be a bill, a request emerging for a bill to authorize 40 to $50 billion in emergency hurricane aid.
Now you know, Wolf, that they already approved $10.5 billion. This substantially ups the estimate of what this hurricane is going to cost. And some of these are direct costs, obviously. We know what the indirect costs are in energy, because we have seen gasoline go to above $3 a barrel. But there are a whole set of costs beyond that that are going to affect those people hurt by the hurricane and spread across the country. We are now looking at estimates well in excess of $100 billion to the economy, enough to actually start taking the annual growth rate of the economy down.
BLITZER: Ali, what about the markets? What do they look like?
VELSHI: See, typically September's not a good month on the markets. But oil is down so much -- $1.61 lower today -- that the Dow is closing what looks to be almost 150 points higher, 145 points higher to 10,592.
NASDAQ closing 25 points higher to 2,166. That's a very strong day in the market. Much because the news that energy and oil is coming back online.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Ali. We'll check back with you. Thanks very much.
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