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The Situation Room
Millions Flee Hurricane Rita; U.S. Gas Crisis Imminent?; Interview With Houston Police Chief
Aired September 22, 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 U.S. and around the world to bring you the day's top stories.
Happening now, it's 2:00 p.m. Central along the Texas coast, where millions are fleeing a monster storm and a possible catastrophe. But with exit routes clogged right now, can they get out in time?
In Louisiana, an urgent appeal to head north. Officials call for a mass evacuation of coastal areas, while, in New Orleans, could just a few inches of rain bring floodwaters back into the streets?
In your town, the price of gas could reach $5 a gallon. Close to 20 oil refineries are at risk from Rita. Many have already shut down. Add chemical plants, shipping channels and ports, and America could be headed for an energy heart attack.
You are in THE SITUATION ROOM.
Hurricane Rita is expected to hit and hit hard early Saturday, and, right now, Texas is the main target. Rita is a powerful Category 4 storm. But a hurricane watch extends along nearly the entire coast of Texas, as far as Morgan City, Louisiana, with bumper-to-bumper evacuation traffic stretching up to 100 miles north of Houston and backups lasting as long as 12 hours and many gas stations have simply run out of gas. This is turning out to be awful.
Officials have turned a freeway into a one-way street to try to get things moving right now. Low-lying Galveston is already becoming a ghost town. Most residents left early, and the city has plans to go without outside help for at least three days if it's cut off by the storm.
A massive hurricane. A massive evacuation. A massive response. Here's a closer look at the numbers. First, the storm. Top winds have dropped to 150 miles per hour, down from 175, dropping Rita to a still powerful Category 4 storm, hurricane-force winds reaching up to 85 miles from the center of the storm. This is big, tropical-storm- force winds extending out 185 miles.
The evacuation, let's get a closer look. An estimated 1.8 million people are being told to pull out of communities along hundreds of miles of the Gulf Coast. Louisiana's governor is urging residents to flee coastal areas and says the state has 800 buses to move people out of harm's way. The military response, a closer look. A quick reaction force of some 3,000 National Guard troops deploying in Louisiana. Amphibious units of 1,000 U.S. Marines can deploy offshore -- onshore very quickly whenever the storm hits. Field kitchens, by the way, can be set up to provide 500,000 meals a day.
Just where is Rita heading right now and how hard is this storm likely to hit?
For some answers, let's turn to our meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. She's standing by at the CNN Hurricane Center.
Jacqui, what do we know?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we know that it's going to be a major hurricane, we think, when it makes landfall, Wolf, a 3, 4, or 5 possibly. It did weaken a little bit today, as you mentioned, with winds now of 150 miles per hour.
We also saw a slight shift in the forecast cone. And I think it's a possibility that, later on today, we could see an additional shift because this storm is continuing to take a little bit more of a northerly track and we have been seeing that the track is a little bit north of what the official Hurricane Center is doing at this time. So, that concerns us and that would make Louisiana more vulnerable.
You can see, there's the forecast cone. And it's really pushing it in towards Eastern Texas or into southwestern parts of Louisiana. And so, if you still live in this area, a lot of evacuations already taking place. If you haven't left yet and been told to evacuate, you need to do so as soon as possible. Make sure you have got all your supplies with you and make sure that you also have some water and food in the car, too, because temperatures are extremely oppressive.
Houston has already hit a record high today of 97 degrees. But you add in that humidity and it feels like temperatures in the 100- degree-plus range.
The storm is big. You mentioned the mileage of how wide across that is. We need to double those numbers, Wolf, because that's just from the center of the storm. So, we're talking about 370 miles across from side to side. That's where the tropical-storm-force winds are. So, this is a very enormous storm. We will likely see some fluctuations in strength. It could go back down to a 3, even maybe back up to a 4 or 5, intensity forecasting not quite as good as the track forecasting.
Check out our time stamp here. This is for Friday morning, 8:00. There, you can see. This yellow area is the tropical-storm-force winds and that is going to be hitting much of the coast here of Louisiana and heading into Texas. This is tomorrow morning already. The hurricane-force winds in this orange area, and we will put that into motion for you, and so you can see that that's going to be arriving sometime late afternoon or early evening tomorrow.
So, we really need to rush to do what you need to do, because this storm is very quickly approaching. And we also have to keep in mind what's going to happen after this. The storm is going to make its way inland. And, unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be stalling out. Northern Texas, Oklahoma, parts of Arkansas, into northern Louisiana could get heavy, heavy rain, in fact, as much as 25 inches, because this storm is expected to stall out and sit and spin here over the next couple of days -- Wolf.
BLITZER: And they could get some tornadoes, too, which is a normal out-current.
JERAS: That's right.
BLITZER: All right, Jacqui, stand by for a moment.
A helicopter reporter from KPRC, our affiliate, is flying over Houston right now. Let's listen in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... show you that. We are seeing a number of breakdowns near University of Houston, 45 northbound people trying to evacuate out of Galveston County. Cars are just having to ditch off the side of the road.
Sometimes, you are seeing families, entire families, pulling over numerous vehicles, because you figure, if one of their vehicles is conked out, the rest of the family is out of business, too. The other thing we're seeing is police officers trying to lend any hand they can, but you know what? Those police officers that carry gasoline cans in the back of their cars or TxDOT officials carrying gas cans, there's only so much they can carry and then they are going to run out.
We're just seeing a solid backup and we're seeing -- OK, the end of the backup, I should say, up ahead of me. Inside the loop is where the break-off is. We're going to follow this on down, Linda, so we can show you where the backup begins. Yesterday, it was a solid backup from here all the way to Galveston County. Now we're getting a break. It looks like the break is near Wayside.
So, Wayside, if you are heading northbound on Interstate 45, getting out of Galveston County, you're going to begin the backup right around Wayside, inside the loop. But it's not moving once you hit that backup. It appears -- you can tell from the perspective that we got yesterday that most of the evacuations out of Galveston County have already happened.
But, certainly, folks who are making the decision today to hit the road, they are in for just hours and hours of sitting there.
BLITZER: And that's one of the problems, one of the problems, the major problems right now. People are trying to leave, but there is little gasoline available off these major freeways, these highways, and a lot of these cars are getting stuck on the road.
Ali Velshi is watching this part of the story. We're going to go to him shortly. In Houston, they are trying to get out any way they possibly can. But it's very slow-going, as we just saw, as this storm is closing in and in. There's gridlock on so many of the highways, gridlock over at the airport, too, by the way.
CNN's Rick Sanchez is joining us now on the phone from George Bush International Airport in Houston.
I understand it's pretty messy over there, Rick. What is the latest?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's like that movie "Last Plane Out." It seems like everyone tried to get to the airport this morning to make a decision to get out of Houston, Wolf.
But what they have encountered is a backlog like nothing that you could imagine, based on the fact, according to now federal officials, that many of the TSA workers did not show up for work today, both at Intercontinental Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and Hobby airport. One hundred, we are told, didn't show up at one airport alone.
What that means is that people, even after they get their tickets, walk out to be screened, and instead of going through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 different screening locations, it's down to one, two at best in some places.
We were watching as the lines for people waiting to be screened snaked through the terminals for blocks and blocks, sometimes seeming interminable. For people who are waiting, many of them with children, it was a scene both at Intercontinental and at Hobby Airport.
We're being told by TSA officials now that they are doing what they possibly can to try and bring in more of those screeners, perhaps from smaller airports in the state or perhaps from other states. They are not quite sure.
As for the reason, it's not known, Wolf. Maybe it's because they were caught in traffic themselves and couldn't get in. Many of them perhaps evacuated because they thought that's what they were supposed to do. Or perhaps they just didn't show up for work. It's somewhat unclear at this point. We don't know if this is a planning issue, but certainly something that's going to be discussed as well.
BLITZER: Rick, we heard the mayor, Bill White, the mayor of Houston, say, if you don't have a reservation, you don't have a ticket, don't go out to the ticket, because they are full out there. And if you do have a reservation, you do have a ticket, be prepared to wait for a long time, and get there very, very early.
What are they saying about how long this airport is going to remain open?
SANCHEZ: It looks, when we last checked, like there's nothing that they are going to be able to do to get anybody out, unless, like you said, they have a ticket. The problem they have on their hands now, Wolf, is imagine if you have a plane that can hold 200 to 300, but so far there's only been a handful who have been able to clear through the screening gates. Well, you aren't going to fly a plane out with six, 10 people. You are going to wait for all the -- the -- the -- the passengers to actually get to the plane.
So, they're having to delay the planes now, many of them more than an hour and who knows beyond that. And that's, obviously, backing things up quite a bit as well. The ticket counter was also backed up when we went by. And it almost is -- is -- is -- is such a backlog there that it's hard to tell which line goes in which direction. And people just look real confused.
And it's always frustrating to see people in situations like this, especially those with children, because your patience has a tendency to run out when you are trying to hold them and get through something like this. But it's -- it's a tough situation for some of the folks at the airport.
As it is for the folks who are waiting on Interstate 45 trying to go north, trying to get out of the city, heading toward Huntsville and Dallas. And there, we are told, Wolf -- I don't know if you have heard -- that there is some help on the way, that Governor Perry is saying he's talking about sending in gas truck to be able to alleviate the problem for people who are either, A, low or, B, have completely run out.
And they are also going to be opening up the southbound lane to get people going in more than just four lanes, maybe as many as eight in some places. It's a problem and officials are doing all they can, it seems.
BLITZER: All right, Rick -- Rick Sanchez reporting for us from the George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas. Rick, thank you.
The road out of Houston is paved with good intentions.
Yolan Ahls and her family tried to get an early start on their evacuation. They left their low-lying neighborhood overnight, but it took them four hours and half a tank of gas just to reach the highway on-ramp. They turned around and then they went back home.
Yolan Ahls is joining us on the phone now from Sugar Land, near Houston.
Tell us what happened, specifically, Yolan, why you decided that you couldn't really drive out of Houston; you were just going to go back home?
YOLAN AHLS, RESIDENT OF TEXAS: Well, we're in the suburbs of Houston. And what we're hoping, for the worst, is a lot of shattered glass and debris and maybe minimal flooding.
And we decided to leave at 2:00 a.m. this morning with our family, our entire family of about 30 people, and we have tried different routes to get out. And we just could not get anywhere. And our biggest fear was not having any gas, that, by the time...
BLITZER: What is the situation with getting gas at gas stations? We have heard, anecdotally, anecdotally, there's really not -- not much gas around.
AHLS: Exactly. Exactly.
All the gas stations were closed that we passed on the way to the highway. And on our way back home, every gas station we passed, including Wal-Mart, was empty. There was -- it was either closed or there was no gas. And...
BLITZER: So, you're going to try -- Yolan, you and your family are going to just try to ride out the storm at home?
AHLS: We're going to ride out the storm together.
BLITZER: All right, Yolan, good luck to you. Good luck to your whole family. We will be checking back with you. Thank you very much.
We have been checking the status of gasoline, gas stations around Houston.
CNN's Ali Velshi is joining us now. He's got a little closer look.
How bad of a situation is it, Ali?
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's incredible.
I mean, we have been making phone calls to gas station after gas station in Houston. They are -- everybody we're talking to is either out of gas, about to be out of gas or shutting down. This is a serious issue. We have just heard from the American Petroleum Institute, saying that this is going to be a serious, serious strain on the country's gasoline and oil supplies. They have asked Americans not to top up their tanks ahead of the price increases, because it is going to put too much pressure on the fuel system.
FEMA, an organization that tracks oil production and gas production very carefully, says this is a heart attack on the center of gas production. We are seeing gas stations, as we said, out of supply because 18 of the 26, 18 of 26 area refineries in that part of Texas are now shut down. We have it officially that Baytown, the largest refinery in the country, shut down and evacuating.
The top refineries in the country, Wolf, are out of business. It will take at least two weeks now, we are understanding, two weeks to start a refinery up, even if it's not damaged. And if it's damaged, there's more than that. So, this is going to have quite an impact on gas prices across the country and oil supply.
And this thing hasn't hit yet. This thing has not hit the Texas coastline yet. Right now, it's probably churning some stuff up in the Gulf of Mexico. But the prices are going to be affected. Production of oil and gas in that part of the Gulf is shutting down rapidly -- Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Ali, we will check back with you. Thank you very much.
Galveston got a head start on its evacuation, mindful of the storm which killed thousands of residents there a century ago. City officials and emergency workers are prepared to ride out Hurricane Rita literally in a fortress that is there on that island.
CNN's David Mattingly is joining us now live from Galveston.
Where in Galveston are you exactly, David?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we are on the seawall, the 17-foot seawall that was erected after the 1900 storm.
And I want to call your attention to the road behind me. It is a very unusual sight to see the Seawall Drive here in Galveston this empty. There's almost never a car passing by here, except for maybe someone from the news media. That's because public officials estimate that 90 percent of the population here has evacuated.
That's an extraordinary figure, no matter what town you might be in. Nine out of 10 people here have chosen to go to safety on the mainland.
Here to my -- to my left, you see a choppy surf. There's never much of a surf -- or much of a beach on this part of Galveston. The main feature is this massive seawall. Authorities are saying -- were saying earlier they were so worried about a Category 5 hitting here that they were worried about massive waves coming over this seawall.
They are backing off on that a bit because of where the storm is going now, possibly to the north of here, that they are now saying they're slightly relieved, but they know the storm could still change course and come back here. So, they know they aren't out of the woods.
No matter how you slice it, this storm is so big and so powerful, Galveston is really going to be taking a punch -- Wolf.
BLITZER: David, I have heard that 75 percent of the residents of Galveston, about 60,000 people, the city itself, as opposed to the county, have left. But 25 percent, if they are still there, how secure might they be?
MATTINGLY: They are not going to be very secure at all.
This island is not very high off of sea level. And there's a great deal of concern that, even with -- if they manage to avoid the floodwaters, there's going to be the tremendous winds. This is not the place to be. And they've been saying this for days now, putting out the mandatory evacuation at 6:00 p.m. local time yesterday to make sure everybody got out of here well ahead of the storm.
They've been offering buses to people of special needs to make sure anybody who needs a ride gets one. They are saying that service is about to run out because they don't want to fill up a bus, have it go sit in that traffic and be caught in the hurricane sitting in traffic. So, they're saying, make your decision now to get off this island.
BLITZER: We are going to check back with you, David. Thank you very much.
The traffic has been incredible, not only getting out of Galveston and Galveston County, but the Houston area as well. Remember, Houston, the metropolitan area, has a population of about four million people. It's the fourth -- the third or fourth -- I believe it's the fourth largest city in the United States right now, four million people. And the traffic is simply, simply a mess.
We have got some live pictures that I want to show our viewers what we're seeing right now. Check this out. Look at the traffic in and around the Houston area.
One of the things we're going to try to get some explanations for coming up, why they don't make all those lanes one way and simply let these people get out of town? You see no one is trying to get in. Virtually no one is trying to get into Houston. They are all trying to get out of Houston. They should take almost all of those other lanes and make them one way contraflow, as they say, to make it a lot easier for these people to leave and not waste their precious gasoline.
The gas stations are over-overstressed right now and they are simply having an enormous, an enormous difficulty getting these people out. They tell people to leave, but then they are not making all the highways one direction, which they presumably should be doing. We will speak with officials, local officials, state officials -- that's coming up -- and get some explanation for that.
Let's get a quick check of the crush of the traffic out of Houston, as people are racing to get out of Rita's way.
Wendell Edwards our affiliate KHOU is joining us now from Houston.
Wendell, you have been looking into this situation. What -- what do you -- what do you see and what do you hear?
WENDELL EDWARDS, KHOU REPORTER: Well, Wolf, we are seeing a lot of traffic, obviously, bumper to bumper, inching, crawling. And, obviously, we're hearing a lot of frustration.
There are people who got up in the middle of the night, thinking, well, perhaps I can avoid the traffic. But they didn't do that. They only got up to see that things had not changed much from yesterday, when the voluntary -- mandatory -- voluntary evacuations were ordered. And then the mandatory evacuations, some kicked in at 6:00 a.m. this morning.
It's been just a nightmare as far as traffic is concerned. I mean, we're all kind of used to rush hour. But this is like three times that much, if not worse. I even have a personal experience. I just got off the phone with my wife about 30 minutes ago. She left our house in northwest Houston at 4:00 a.m. We have a 7-month-old daughter and a 3-year-old daughter. And she's gone 16 miles in about eight hours. And she's reached her breaking point. She was on the phone in tears. And it's kind of hard to hear.
But those stories like that are all over Houston. I'm here at the airport at Hobby Airport. And it's just as busy here. In fact, all flights here are booked. They have been since around 11:00 this morning. You actually have to have a ticket and a confirmed flight before you even come to the airport. And then that's a problem. Once you get here, there's no place to park inside the airport or outside the airport.
So, they are suggesting people take a taxi. So, whether you are trying to get out by plane or by car, it's taking some time and a lot of patience -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Wendell Edwards of affiliate KHOU, good luck to you. Good luck to everyone over there in Houston. Thank you very much.
Let's check in with Jack Cafferty. He's been looking at this situation.
And I think you got some thoughts on what's going on, Jack.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Are they getting, like, preparedness planning ideas from the officials in Louisiana? Put that picture back up behind you. Why -- has anybody explained why they won't open the southbound lanes to northbound traffic?
BLITZER: I don't understand that. We're going to speak to some officials and try to get some answers. It makes no sense to me that all those lanes -- maybe one lane, they can keep for emergency vehicles...
CAFFERTY: Exactly, leave one lane open.
BLITZER: ... going opposite traffic.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
BLITZER: But every other lane should be open. I mean, that's ridiculous, when you see that.
CAFFERTY: I mean, I remember, last year, New Orleans was threatened by a hurricane. I have got a daughter who attends Tulane. And they had all of this causeway traffic trying to get out. They were going to Texas to escape that storm.
And they had all the lanes open, except for one inbound lane for the emergency trucks and whatever. Whoever is managing traffic down there, I wouldn't apply for a raise anytime soon. I mean, that's just silly.
They are doing everything, though, in Texas to try to make sure that this time is different than the last. The government has designated Hurricane Rita a -- quote -- "incident of national significance" -- unquote -- which means they think a Category 4 hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast is important. Hey, that's a start.
With Katrina, this didn't come until a day after the hurricane hit. This early response is a widespread effort, including everyone from FEMA to the Pentagon. They are rushing troops, hospital beds, rescue teams, evacuation buses into Texas before the storm hits. There's a concept. Mindful of the slow response to Katrina, White House officials say that the president spent a good part of yesterday working on hurricane business.
Here's the question for this hour. What is likely to be different about the response to Hurricane Rita? You can e-mail us at CaffertyFile@CNN.com. And we will read some of the responses a bit later.
BLITZER: All right, Jack. Thank you very much.
One thing I think they're going to learn is, the TSA officials who work at airports, you've got to make sure they show up at the airports to deal with people trying to get out of harm's way.
When we come back, the Houston police chief, we will ask him about the traffic problems and what they can do to get people out of Houston.
Also, they lived a nightmare once. Will Hurricane Rita flood New Orleans again? We will show you how that devastated city is preparing.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back.
Look at these live pictures we're getting in, a helicopter flying over Houston, all this traffic, congested traffic, people trying to escape from Houston.
Let's listen in briefly to this reporter from our affiliate KPRC in Houston.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got people cutting across grass. They are seeing blacktop. They're seeing pavement and they're figuring, hey, if I just jump across this grass, I can get on this pavement and move. But that's extremely dangerous. So, you've got police trying to make sure that doesn't happen and just trying to make sure that they have the southbound lanes sealed up entirely, so that they can move the traffic over there and open it up.
BLITZER: All right. We're going to break away and bring in the police chief of Houston, Harold Hurtt, who is joining us on the phone.
Chief, thanks very much for joining us. You are looking at these pictures. You see all these traffic -- all this traffic, all these lanes congested and then the other lanes going the other way virtually empty. Why not make it all one way?
HAROLD HURTT, HOUSTON POLICE CHIEF: We're in the process of doing that right now. We're going to have our officers go to the exits and entrances to the freeway and block them off.
And where we can't get officers, we are going to pull 18-wheelers in there to make sure that traffic gets moving.
(CROSSTALK)
BLITZER: Chief, why hasn't -- why have you -- Chief, a quick follow-up on that, though? Why have you waited so long to do that?
HURTT: Well, we have been working on that all morning.
But, also, you have to remember that, what's at the other end? As you -- the further you go north, the traffic is backing up there also. Even if we have more people leaving Houston and going north, if you don't have the freeways open up there, now we're just going to block off two sides of the freeway. So, we're working with the county and the state to address this matter, to get people off the freeway as soon as possible and get people out of Houston and Galveston area immediately.
BLITZER: Was the city of Houston, the state of Texas, not prepared for this mass evacuation from Houston? Because it seems to me, at least looking at it from the outside, Chief, that these are plans that should have been in the works for a long time. You are asking a million or two million or three million people to get out of town. And it looks like it's a little late in the game to do that.
HURTT: No, the plans were in place all along. We had a plan for an orderly evacuation.
As you can understand yourself, as the TV continued to show the development of the storm from a 3 to a 4 to a 5, more people decided that they are going to leave. And we're not going to stop anybody. And now we're at a process of adjusting the plans to accommodate everybody that wants to leave. And that will happen.
BLITZER: We see now in these live pictures from our affiliate KPRC, we see the traffic moving into some of the other lanes. It's beginning to move. I assume this is going to happen.
When -- when -- when is the last moment, you believe, that it would be advantageous for people to leave Houston, given the fact that this storm is expected to hit sometime late Friday, early Saturday?
HURTT: I think people can leave tomorrow and still be able to get away from Houston and get out ahead of the storm. And we are monitoring...
BLITZER: What about the problem, though -- Chief, what about the problem that the gasoline stations say they have no more gas, that, if you are driving, you could drive out of Houston, but get stuck because your tank is empty and there's no place to fill up.
HURTT: We're positioning truckloads of fuel along the freeway, all of the freeways headed out of Houston. People will be able to stop there and we will fill up their vehicles, so they can keep going.
BLITZER: As you know, Chief, a lot of people are reluctant to leave their homes, to leave their businesses, because they are scared of looters. They're scared of problems along those lines. What are the Houston police doing to prevent looting down the road?
HURTT: We have mobilized the entire department.
I was out myself this morning driving around the city. There's very few vehicles on the street. There's very few people out. We have officers out. Right now, we're almost in a position where the officers outnumber the citizens on the street. And we intend to keep it that way throughout this entire incident.
BLITZER: What about your police force itself? I don't know how many officers you have.
But, in New Orleans, as you well know, there were some police officers who were -- who simply abandoned their posts because they wanted to protect their families; they wanted to protect their own lives.
How much of a problem, potentially, do you see with the Houston police force?
HURTT: I don't see a problem at all because we've made accommodations for the police officers' wives at our academy. We're going to make sure they are taken care of, their children are taken care of, so they can concentrate on taking care of Houston.
BLITZER: What percentage of the city do you see evacuating Houston?
HURTT: Well, right now we're looking at probably half of the city. I think that was the initial plan, but it'd probably more than that because of the magnitude of the storm.
BLITZER: Where are these people going? The hotels are fully booked. Are they simply getting in their cars and driving?
HURTT: Some people are doing that because they have tried to book hotels in San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin, the other places that we told them just drive until you find a hotel, but get out of the line of the storm.
BLITZER: Is there a mandatory evacuation in Houston or is this simply voluntary. HURTT: There is a mandatory, and mandatory does not mean that we're going to force people to leave. Mandatory is a fact that we're telling them it's mandatory because they are in a very high risk area and they need to leave immediately.
BLITZER: What about the poor people who don't have cars? What about the infirmed, the elderly, those who are in hospitals? what have you -- what provisions have you made for them?
HURTT: We've made provisions with the fire department and other community-based organizations and governmental entities to take care of all special needs. The homeless, the hospital, the nursing homes -- all of those have been taken care of, both public and private, and people have been moved out.
BLITZER: Is the Houston Astrodome, Chief, a shelter of last resort if you will, right now in your city?
HURTT: I think the last I heard is that the Astrodome would not stand up to a Category 5 storm or 4 storm so we're not going to use that as a shelter.
BLITZER: All right, chief, I want to wish you the best of luck. You've got an enormous mission ahead of you. Chief Harold Hurtt of the Houston Police Department. Thanks for spending a few moments with us here in THE SITUATION ROOM.
HURTT: Thank you.
BLITZER: Let's go right to Baton Rouge. Vice Admiral Thad Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard, the point man for FEMA on the ground in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mississippi, speaking to reporters.
VICE ADM. THAD ALLEN, DIR. OF FEMA'S KATRINA RELIEF OPS: ... places where we can put evacuation that would be necessary and to the extent that the resources within the state are not sufficient, to support the number of evacuees, we are coordinating with higher officials in Washington regarding out of state locations where we might be able to put those folks.
In general, it's a very coordinated operation. We have a total visibility of the resources at the state, local and federal level, DOD, non-DOD. We are coordinating completely across and we understand the implications of the combined resources when they are put together and General Honore in his capacity is trading off those resources as they may be necessary with what's going on in Texas with the assets that are floating in the Gulf. With that, we'd be glad to take some questions.
QUESTION: Admiral, in terms of the governor's request for 15,000 additional National Guard troops, is that going to happen? Are those troops on the way?
ALLEN: Well, there are two different requests and I'll defer to the military folks behind me. One is a request for National Guard troops, the other was a request for additional federal forces and I'll let them amplify on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll address the National Guard request because I've already had a discussion with the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lieutenant General Clyde Vaughn (ph), midmorning where we identified 6,000 troops and was moving aggressively to identify the remainder of the 15,000 so that those would be available to us.
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE, CMDR., JT. TASK FORCE KATRINA: Well, we talked some yesterday and we talked about our military planning included branches and sequels. A sequel is -- a branch is the adjustment to what we were doing in Katrina. And what we've done with our military, we took the Navy in response to Rita and moved it out into the Gulf of Mexico, thereby giving us the flexibility to have the Navy follow the storm ashore.
That Navy is led off of flight ship Iwo Jima and it's approximately five ships: Iwo Jima, Baton, Torturo and Comfort and Shreveport. They are floating right off the coast of Florida. With them, they have medical, air assets, medical capability on two of the ships and a hospital ship and several -- many helicopters, as well as 800 marines and small boats.
They will follow the storm in and will take orders from Northern Command, my higher headquarters, as to where they get deployed. That's a bigger part of what's happening as we follow this storm with the Coast Guard.
The rest of our federal forces are currently basically in the same place we were as far as a footprint for Katrina, in and around Orleans Parish and St. Bernard Parish. We have taken some of our helicopters and repositioned them because we expect 50-mile-an-hour winds in southeast Louisiana, which means we have to move our helicopters back, and those are land-based helicopters, primarily, Army helicopters. So we'll reposition those back.
In Orleans and St. Bernard parish, as described by General Landreneau, we are embedding the 82nd Airborne and our core support command is located in Hammond, which has fuel and logistics capability. Their first mission is to survive Rita in places in New Orleans and in southeast Louisiana.
If there is a flooding event in southeast Louisiana, which could happen -- all of you have been watching the news on that. That could happen. Then we will deal with that flood and then those troops or capabilities would be available as seen by the NORTHCOM commander to reinforce ...
BLITZER: All right. We're going to break away briefly from this briefing in Baton Rouge to go to Ed Rappaport of the National Hurricane Center. He's joining us from Miami right now. New Orleans, first of all, Ed, what is the expectation? What kind of serious problems are these people, these poor people, expecting there?
ED RAPPAPORT, NATL. HURRICANE CTR.: We don't expect hurricane- force winds in the New Orleans area. There's less than a five percent chance of that. However, they are on the border for tropical storm force winds on the order of a 40 percent to 50 percent chance. So we are considering upgrading the tropical storm watches, if necessary, to tropical storm warnings.
Those winds would be occurring mainly in squalls, not continuous, but in a few squalls. You can see some of those squalls starting to come in now to the coast. Here's the Louisiana coast and here are some of these rain showers and thunderstorms with New Orleans located up here. There is going to be rainfall potential of three to five inches over the next 12 to 24 hours.
BLITZER: What about the people in Houston? What should they be bracing for?
RAPPAPORT: Houston is in for a more serious weather conditions, as is nearby Galveston. But we don't want to focus just on Houston and Galveston because the threat actually goes quite a bit farther to the east as well.
Landfall should it occur near the Louisiana/Texas border, will mean that there's going to be hurricane force winds from near Galveston eastward all the way to near Lake Charles and perhaps beyond in Louisiana. So it's both an impact for southwestern Louisiana and the upper Texas coast.
BLITZER: So specifically, these millions of people who are leaving the Houston area, Galveston County, if they had stayed, what would be happening, for example, in Houston? It's a relatively low- lying area.
RAPPAPORT: If the center of the hurricane comes ashore just to the west of Houston, so that the strongest winds and highest storm surge occur there, there would be a rise in the water of 15 to 20 feet with waves on top along the coast and that water would spread miles inland. We don't know if that's where the center is going to come ashore now. But wherever it is from that point eastward will have that kind of storm surge, 15 to 20 feet.
BLITZER: Getting back to New Orleans, since that's going to be east of the main part of this hurricane, that is not necessarily good news for New Orleans.
RAPPAPORT: Well, they are going to be out here where we saw a lot of that weather. And it will be going on and off, at least for the next 24 hours in terms of rain showers and maybe longer. Also the winds are on shore there, so here will be a water rise of perhaps three or four feet in southeastern Louisiana. It's already come up about two feet.
BLITZER: In other words, it's not a good situation. Ed Rappaport, thank you very much for joining us. Ed Rappaport with the National Hurricane Center. Quickly, I want to go to CNN's Ali Velshi. He's getting some information that is important. Ali, what your picking up?
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Shutdowns all across the place. The Port of New Orleans, Wolf, is closed. The Explorer pipeline, which takes gasoline refined products, fuel, jet fuel, diesel from the Gulf coast to the Midwest is shut down now. So we are going to now see distribution centers having trouble getting gasoline to gas stations.
The Midwest is a major distribution center. So we have gasoline flow out of the Gulf coast shutting down to the Midwest. This is from the American Petroleum Institute. We will get you more on that now. New Orleans, the port of New Orleans, has shut down. The Louisiana offshore oil port has shut down as well. We are having shutdowns across the Gulf in terms of oil and gas production.
BLITZER: With enormous ramifications for all of us. Ali, thank you very much. Let's go back to that briefing. The military commander on the scene, Lieutenant General Russel Honore is speaking to reporters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... Governor Blanco, Major General Landreneau from the Louisiana National Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, who's the federal coordinating officer and principal federal official. And, of course, Lieutenant General Honore, who is our Joint Task Force Katrina commander.
We're scheduled to be back here tomorrow afternoon at 2:00.
BLITZER: All right. We're going to break away. He was speaking, Russel Honore. And we'll tell you what he said. We'll review all of these late-breaking developments. We're going to take a quick break. We'll go back to New Orleans specifically. They're bracing for another catastrophe. We'll tell you what's happening there.
In Houston, in Galevston, we're staying on top of this story. Hurricane Rita. Much more from THE SITUATION ROOM, right after this.
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BLITZER: Can the levees withstand more punishment in New Orleans? Our Mary Snow is there. She's just back from an aerial tour of these floodwalls. She's joining us now live. Mary, update our viewers. What did you see?
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I can tell you that the worry level has turned up a notch with this latest forecast. We are coming to you live from one of the lines of defense here in New Orleans. You might see this pumping line right out here. But what you see behind me, this is a 17th Street canal. And these are steel pilings.
As you just mentioned, we just returned from an aerial tour with Brigadier General Bruce Berwick for the Joint Task Force Katrina. He said the order was put in place last night to completely lock off this canal with these steel pilings. This in order to protect the levee breach, which is about a quarter of a mile behind me. This, he says, is one way to protect from a storm surge.
However, he also points out that with the steel pilings in place and the canal closed off that also water cannot be taken out with that canal blocked. We also should point out that Lake Pontchartrain is right behind us. We talked with the brigadier general about his assessment of what he is seeing. These -- there are three levee breaches. He says that he is satisfied that everything that could possibly be done has been done to shore up these levees.
This is what he had to say about what he's expecting as of now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN BRUCE BERWICK, JOINT TASK FORCE KATRINA: As long as three conditions are met -- and that is that the forecast does not get appreciably worse -- what we're expecting right now is three to five feet of surge, with one to two feet of wave action. As long as we -- the rain amount is what we're expecting, six to eight over two to there days, six to eight inches over two to three days. And lastly, as long as these levees, the repairs hold as we expect, the worst we could have here is minor flooding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: And he's saying the minor flooding, he's expecting two to four feet of water in areas that could be quickly pumped out. Of course, if any of those conditions that he just mentioned changed, he said, that could dramatically change the landscape in terms of flooding -- Wolf?
BLITZER: All right, Mary, we're going to get back to you. Mary Snow reporting for us in New Orleans, where they're bracing for Hurricane Rita. This is less than a month after they took the brunt of Hurricane Katrina.
After Hurricane Katrina, the federal government was roundly criticized for an admittedly slow-footed response. Coming up, how are the preparations and the plans for relief different this time around? We've been asking you that question. Jack Cafferty standing by. He has your e-mail.
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BLITZER: It's a powerful Category 4 storm approaching Texas, Louisiana. Right now in the Gulf of Mexico, it's huge. We're watching it. That would be Hurricane Rita.
There's other news unfolding, though, at the same time. Our Zain Verjee is standing by at the CNN Center in Atlanta with a quick look at that. Hi, Zain.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted this afternoon to send the nomination of John Roberts to the full Senate, where approval is considered almost certain. Roberts is President Bush's choice for chief justice. He'd succeed the late William Rehnquist. The vote was 13-5. Three Democrats joined all 10 Republicans in backing Roberts.
Two freight trains collided head on in Southeastern Virginia this morning. State police say six railway workers were injured, four of them seriously. Several cars derailed and of them caught fire. One train was carrying gravel from a quarry and the other one was empty. Now, the cause is under investigation.
Coretta Scott King is home from the hospital today. Five weeks ago, the 78-year-old widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suffered a stroke. Now, it left her unable to speak or move her right arm. King has now regained some of her speech. Doctors say they expect a full recovery.
Wolf, back to you in THE SITUATION ROOM where I believe our Jack is standing by also to join you in THE SITUATION ROOM.
BLITZER: As we does every day. Zain, thank you very much.
Let's go right to Jack Cafferty. He's been going through your e- mail. Jack, what are you picking up?
CAFFERTY: Why do we say our Zain and our Jack? I'm not Zain's Jack.
VERJEE: Jack, you are our Jack. You are THE SITUATION ROOM'S Jack, Jack. You have a special position in our SITUATION ROOM, Jack.
CAFFERTY: From now on I'm directing all my questions to you. I'm going right around the Wolf man. Going direct to Zain Verjee.
The federal government has activated a massive early response to Hurricane Katrina (sic), rushing in troops, hospital beds, rescue teams, evacuation buses into Texas before the storm hits. The question we're asking is, what's likely to be different about the response to Hurricane Rita? Some of you are just not taking this seriously enough.
Weldon in New Market, Ontario, "meaning as the storm is scheduled to hit Bush's home state, you can be sure that any relief available will be there and more."
Max in Brooklyn, "Federal and local governments cannot afford to step in it again. The problem is not manpower or money -- two things this country has -- it's the lame leadership we get in times of trouble. We need a strong leader on the ground telling people what to do and how to do it. One voice. Hopefully we learned that from Katrina."
Maggie in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, "Texas and a Republican state. Things will be very different. A week from now, oil refineries, chemical plants will be back online while evacuees will still be sitting in traffic on the west bound highway."
Dee writes, "nothing will change. Look at how long it has taken the Houston police to open the south bound lanes to northbound traffic. That should not have taken hours to arrange. Once again we can see this one coming. What if this were an evacuation due to a WMD attack? That's a frightening thought." And finally Rick in Tampa writes, "what's likely to be different? No. 1, Condi Rice bought her shoes today instead of waiting for the after-storm sales. Laura Bush, No. 2, has mastered Re-ta. No. 3, Barbara Bush has been secured in an undisclosed location. No. 4, President Bush doesn't anticipate a breach of the levees in Houston. And No. 5, Vice President Cheney will not be visiting the hurricane ravaged areas for fear of being told to go blank yourself again in front of a national television audience."
BLITZER: You know, it's interesting that this is just starting, Rita, and already we've got two major problems that we see. The TSA screeners, a lot of them apparently didn't show up at Houston Airport today. And that's causing an enormous problem for the evacuation. And these traffic patterns. You see, we spoke to the police chief and he says they are now in the process of implementing these one-way routes out of Houston.
CAFFERTY: And yet, we've got report after report of people who have have been in this traffic for 10, 15 hours. One lady wrote to me said we just got to Austin. It's usually a three-hour drive. It took us 19 hours, which means they started yesterday, about the time we were getting off the air.
This is inexcusable. The police are now getting around -- he said they've been conferring -- what was it, with state and county officials all day? That might be part of the problem. Government officials, who has jurisdiction, who is going to handle this? Who is going to run this thing? But this is inexcusable. These picture of these empty lanes headed for southbound traffic and all the northbound cars are sitting doing nothing except running out of gas. A lot of them probably have kids in the car, pets in the car. It's not cold in Houston this time of year. I mean, that's inexcusable isn't it?
BLITZER: It is. And there's not a lot of gasoline stations that have gas right now either. Jack, stand by. We're going to get back to you. Our Jack Cafferty is standing by.
And we're going to take a quick break right here. CNN, your hurricane headquarters. For much more on Rita's power and path, we'll go to the source, the National Hurricane Center. We're getting more information even as we speak.
And still ahead, an update on the race to get out of Houston. A race that's not only -- that's not going as fast as many evacuees, in fact, all of us would like to see. And who is holding down the fort in Galveston as Rita nears? The police chief will give us an update on his city. It's threat -- your in THE SITUATION ROOM.
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BLITZER: More on Hurricane Rita, the situation online. Our Internet reporter Jacki Schechner joining us now live. She's watching what's happening there -- Jacki.
JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN INTERNET CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, as we follow Hurricane Rita online, we found some interesting resources for you. First from compooter.org. They did a google hack. They took a Google map, combined it with data from Unisys and NOAA and they created this where you can follow Hurricane Rita yourself. If you click on the little dot, it gives you latest information. Now, it's the observations. It's also the projected path of where it's going to go.
Another site we really like, this from Riglogix. It gives you the current mobile offshore rig positions. Those are the ones in orange. The gray ones are the fixed platform locations. You can zoom in on this map, And the black dots are the cities. There's Galveston. It shows you the perspective of where those platforms are.
Another thing really interesting was the "Houston Chronicle" has started a blog called stormwatchers. And unlike other blogs from newspapers, they are actually using citizen journalists. They are asking people to blog their experiences. Some people like J. Lee here posting his photographs. This will be one to watch, Wolf. Because we saw in New Orleans how the "Times-Picuyune" newspaper became a vital, vital lifeline during Hurricane Katrina. Keep an eye on this one from "The Houston Chronicle."
BLITZER: Thanks very much, Jacki.
It's almost time for the markets to close. The closing bell. There's other news that Ali Velshi is watching. You are just developing a story right now, Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to keep up with everything that is happening right now. The Department of Energy just saying now that there will be disruptions -- there will be disruptions in U.S. gasoline supplies for the next one to three weeks. One to three weeks. That's coming from the Department of Energy.
The American Petroleum Institute says that the explorer pipeline which takes energy from the Gulf to the Midwest is going to be affected.
Let me tell you what markets are doing on this. They are pulling back a little bit. They strengthened because oil came down a little bit when the hurricane was thought to have weakened. But we're looking at a Dow that is up 44 points to 10,422 right now. It's up a little bit more than four-tenths of a percent. The NASDAQ is up just five points, about 1200 -- 2,111.
Now, I'm going to just see if you can see this. I'll get this developed properly for air, but you can see this map here. There's a refinery that's going from Houston -- I'll just pull that back. I'll just get it up here so you can see it. Wolf, can you kind of see that?
BLITZER: Yes, we can see it, that's good.
VELSHI: OK. So that refinery is going from Louisiana to Houston. That's a refined pipeline. It's called the explorer pipeline. It's one of the major pipelines in the country. It takes refined products -- diesel, jet fuel and gasoline -- up through to St. Louis, which is a major distribution center, and then to Chicago. These are two major distribution centers in the country.
That line is shut down. Gasoline is not flowing there. Now, you saw after Katrina, when the line that was going to the northeast was shut down, you saw shortages in certain places. Now, CNN has called 120 gas stations in the Houston area. Eighty-two of them are not answering the phone. We do know some of those are shut. Thirty-one of them are out of gas. Seven of them, as of about 20 minutes ago, had gas, might be running out. Some of them are evacuating.
We are now seeing -- this is not a long-term situation, Wolf. This is not a shortage of oil. It is refineries that are shut down. Almost all of the 26 refineries in the region are shut down now. And we are going to see gas issues in the next one to three weeks. That's from the Department of Energy.
BLITZER: We'll feel it here. The impact will be on all of us. Ali, thank you very much.
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