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CNN Sunday Morning

Rita: The Day After

Aired September 25, 2005 - 10:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Rita, the day after. Water, water, just about everywhere, from near Houston, Texas to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Some residents begin to return home to start the long process of cleaning up.
It is Sunday, September 25th. Good morning, everyone, from the CNN Center in Atlanta. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning from the outskirts of Houston, Texas, the northern outskirts, on Interstate 45. I'm Miles O'Brien. It's homecoming day for a good chunk of Houston, assuming they follow a voluntary plan. We'll tell you if there will be a much more orderly return than there was an evacuation.

But first, let's get back to Fredricka with the latest on the aftermath of Hurricane Rita -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks so much, Miles. I want to show you this live picture coming in from our affiliate there on the Trinity River, from our KRIV affiliate. That's a rather grainy picture -- now you're seeing color bars, but what you were seeing was a runaway, unmanned barge. We don't know exactly where it originated from, but there was some sort of a crane on it, a vehicle on top of that crane. But no one is steering that barge. And it's loose, and just kind of rolling away there on the Trinity River.

And of course, when we get a little bit more information about that, we'll be bringing that to you.

Meantime, here is what else -- hear what else is happening at this moment. Following Hurricane Rita, federal emergency teams are getting search and rescue operations under way this morning. Untold numbers may be trapped by floodwaters. After Rita battered southwest Louisiana, some areas have gotten up to a foot of rain.

Work has already started to get oil refineries back on line. Facilities in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in Beaumont, Texas, and Port Arthur, Texas, are getting immediate attention. It appears that refineries in the Houston area escaped major damage.

Just a few hours ago, the military told President Bush the nation needs an emergency response plan. The recommendation came at the president's latest briefing on hurricane relief efforts, an early morning session at Randolph Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas. The president says he has been considering what the Pentagon's role should be in the aftermath of major disasters. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is there a circumstance in which the Department of Defense becomes the lead agency? Clearly in the case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case. But if there is a natural disaster, which -- of a certain size that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? You know, that's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right. And now we've got some new information -- new pictures, rather, of that runaway barge taking place on the Trinity River. We want to bring that to you. Again, it's an unmanned barge, with some sort of vehicle on top. And I'm now being told that there is actually another barge that is also on the Trinity River. One is actually being towed; the other is on its own and not being steered, because there is no one on board, and that's the one that you're looking at right now.

We don't know where along the Trinity River this is taking place, and when we get that information, we'll be bringing that to you as soon as we can. These taped pictures that are being turned around from a live helicopter shot.

Now, ever wonder what a storm surge looks like? This is it. This frightening home video of Hurricane Rita's surge was taken Saturday by a resident in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. You can see the relentless invasion of water as it smashes into the home, engulfing all of its contents. These residents eventually fled into the attic, and then used a shotgun to blast a hole into the roof in order to escape the rising water.

Well, major cleanup and rescue efforts continue in Abbeville, Louisiana this morning. The city was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Rita, experiencing some flooding up to the rooftops. Abbeville is located south of Lafayette, Louisiana and east of Lake Charles, and CNN's Ed Lavandera is there now and joins us with an update. And I see you got a chopper behind you. Does this mean that some search and rescue missions are about to be under way?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're about to take off. And what they're going to be doing is taking off over this area, doing an assessment.

We just talked to one Coast Guard official who says they believe that they've gotten about 90 to 95 percent of the people they can get out of the southern part of Vermilion Parish out already. But they're going to go out and survey. They've got some pinpointed locations that they're going to continue to search. So search and rescue missions will continue here shortly.

This is not only being done by the air, but it's also being done by boat. Fish and Wildlife, Louisiana Fish and Wildlife brought in some 50 boats and 50 agents. And residents from this area have been helping those agents navigate the waters, and essentially through the streets, trying to find people that still might be missing.

The governor yesterday told -- the governor of Louisiana told us yesterday that 250 people roughly had been rescued yesterday. You showed the video there of the amazing video of the storm surge taking over that one man's house. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued him. There are other people that were brought in as well.

There's one story that we've been talking about, we'll continue to track throughout the day, the story of a woman and her three children. The woman who refused to evacuate, despite requests from sheriff's deputies here for several days leading up to this storm to evacuate. She refused. She was last heard from yesterday as the waters were rising, as she put up a plea for help into the authorities. But when they went back to look for her, they weren't even able to find the trailer that she lived in. So that search will continue here as well today.

It's unclear how many people might be out there. But authorities here and the search and rescue teams are working under the -- under the impression that there still is work to be done out there. And as I mentioned, it will continue by air and by the floodwaters as well -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Ed Lavandera, in Abbeville, Louisiana, thanks so much.

The governor of Texas is urging people to stay put, but hundreds of Texans are still clogging the roads, anxious to return to their homes after evacuating for Hurricane Rita. CNN's Miles O'Brien is there along I-45, as he has been all morning, with a better view of -- now that it's bright and sunny out there -- better view of how folks are making their commute home.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, sort of like a traffic reporter without the helicopter this morning, Fredricka. Here I am on the -- sitting -- I get to sit on the jersey barrier, that's all the budget we have for this one, as we tell you about Interstate 45.

The traffic is picking up a little bit, a little after 9:00 local time here. This part of the city, the northwest quadrant, is good to go. This is the part of city that people can return to today. This is a voluntary program, no fines, no penalties, no arrests are promised by the authorities if people ignore it. They would like to ask people to come in in a phased and orderly way, given what happened on Thursday and Friday. Certainly memories of that very fresh on people's minds. They're hoping people watching in the outlying ares would do just that.

So far, so good. We'll keep you posted all throughout the day.

I found some people here today. Boy, we found some gas, which is a big deal. The Flying J (ph) truck stop here on Interstate 45 near Ritchie (ph) Road. $2.83. Not a bad price. David and Angela Jackson is here. They did not evacuate. She has a ballet school. She was concerned about that; they're still without power. Do you wish you evacuated?

ANGELA JACKSON, HOUSTON RESIDENT: No, we're really glad we stayed home. To go out and fight those kind of hours on the freeway, we did a lot better just running off of a generator once we lost power, and checking on our properties. And...

O'BRIEN: I was just talking to the police chief, and he said actually too many people evacuated. They wanted 1.5 million people or so; people heard all this and panicked.

DAVID JACKSON, HOUSTON RESIDENT: I don't know if they panicked. They just watched what happened in New Orleans and decided it was a good idea to leave. I know we didn't want to, but if the winds had gotten up to 120 miles an hour here, we might have wished we had.

O'BRIEN: Well, that's just it. It's hard to play that game and figure out when is the right time.

Next time there is an evacuation order, are you going to do anything different?

A. JACKSON: I think that I'm more prepared now, especially if I am going to stay home. I've got my supplies all ready, and I know what I need, that if it looks like it's coming into Houston again, we'll just have to make that value judgment based on what we know. And if we have to go, we go.

O'BRIEN: Do you agree?

D. JACKSON: I agree, sure.

O'BRIEN: All right.

D. JACKSON: I'll do whatever she says.

O'BRIEN: Always (INAUDIBLE). That's what I always say. David and Angela Jackson, thanks very much, and congratulations on getting a full tank of gas. Good luck as you get that power back on.

They're among 350,000 customers here in Houston without power still, and that's part of the reason they don't want to get everybody in here right away. They want to get that power online.

Of course, the concerns about Houston ended up not being what was anticipated, certainly not the worst-case scenario that was predicted, as Rita moved to the east and kept moving to the east. And what has become a bigger problem is southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana, in particularly.

CNN's Gary Tuchman is in Port Arthur, Texas, a town of about 58,000, right on the banks of Lake Sabine, where it could have been much worse as well. But nonetheless, still a lot of flooding, and certainly there, Gary, they don't want people coming home this morning, do they?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, they do not. Most of the city is still closed. Authorities are saying they want to get power back, they want to get rid of the sporadic flooding before they allow people back to the homes behind me.

In front of me, the roads are dry. That's another part of Port Arthur. People are being allowed back there right now. However, they're also being advised, you may want to stay away for a couple more days, because you're right, still no power, no water whatsoever.

You see behind me a car in the water there? Usually, we see cars in flooded water. I just wonder what the stories are. There is no way to find out, but it just so happened a CNN crew saw the guy in that car Saturday driving during the hurricane, and at that time, the water was only about a foot and a half deep. But his car stalled, and he said you know what, I'll come back in about an hour and get it out of there, I'm going to get some help from AAA or something. And our crew said to themselves, you know, that's optimistic thinking, but that's not going to happen during a hurricane, there's going to be no AAA and no help.

And sure enough, seven feet of water, and that car is one of the cars that have been swallowed up around Port Arthur.

But people here are very lucky, because they expected the possibility that the 14-foot seawall here would be breached. It was not. The flooding here is rainwater and not storm surge, and that is good news.

Very interesting situation in a hotel nearby. It's the only hotel open in the area. It's a Holiday Inn. There was a sign, we saw a very creative message left on the board outside the hotel before the hurricane came. And it said in two words, "good luck." That summed it all up. Everyone thought they needed some luck, and indeed they did get some of it. But inside the hotel right now, it was a beautiful hotel when we checked in there. Now, it's a flooded hotel -- musty, moldy, water everywhere. And living inside the hotel are members of the news media, some people who needed shelter, and police. Police have made it their headquarters right now, because their precinct building was flooded. And what they've done with their headquarters -- and they're not only conducting their operations, but they've set up a makeshift jail right next to the bar in a ballroom in the hotel. It's a jail for anyone who is picked up for allegedly looting. What they do is they bring a few people into that jail, and then they transport them to another jail.

They are telling us, though, they're not having a huge problem with looting, that they've taken control of the city. But if you loot, you're going to end up at the Holiday Inn. Miles, back to you.

O'BRIEN: That's not exactly what you would expect for a jail, Gary. Like I say, talk about an eclectic mix at the bar at that Holiday Inn.

TUCHMAN: Miles, I would tell you one thing: It's the most eclectic group of people I've seen in a long time in any one place.

O'BRIEN: All right, Gary Tuchman, there in Port Arthur, where we're glad it's not the worst case, and we wish them well as they get things back together there in that city pump (ph) drive. Back to you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And nice to see that so many folks have a sense of humor about it all too, Miles.

Let's check in with Jacqui Jeras in the weather center for the latest on the big picture for everyone -- Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Fredricka, still going to have some rain and some gusty winds and even threat of tornadoes to contend with throughout much of the day today. We'll see general rain amounts between 2 and 4 inches. And this is actually really good news, because the remnants of Rita moving very quickly up to the north and to the east, so it's moving much faster than we had initially thought. And so, this inland flooding will not be as big of an issue, though we're still expecting some of that, and be aware that there is a lot of flash flood watches throughout much of this region.

There you can see the tornado watch, and this line really is starting to fire up across much of Mississippi, getting close towards the Jackson area. And Memphis has been getting hit pretty hard throughout much of the day today. You can see most of those strong storms have just progressed off to the east, and that line does have the potential of producing some wind gusts around 50 to 60 miles per hour.

Cold front, a very strong storm system across the upper Midwest. This is helping to drive the storm up to the north and to the east. It's also helping to weaken Rita pretty significantly. That has picked it up, and that's what's increased that forward speed. And we were a little worried that it was going to stall out or even possibly push a little farther off to the south, and that's no longer a concern.

Red highlighted area is where we're going to see that threat for severe weather. And something else to keep in mind, they're asking you to wait a couple of days, if you can, to return back home to Houston. And with water like this, who wants to sit in traffic. Ninety-nine again, with heat index about 105 this afternoon -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Thanks a lot, Jacqui.

Well, still to come, getting oil refineries all along the Texas and Louisiana coast to be up and running again. We'll get a refinery damage assessment coming up. And New Orleans gets flooded twice in less than a month when a levee is breached. We'll get a live update.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Just moments ago, the president got a briefing at the Randolph Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, where nearly everyone was in agreement there that coordination efforts between various military and federal and local and state entities need some work, especially following Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Jamie McIntyre was in on that briefing, and had close conversations with General Clark there. He's on the telephone with us now. Jamie, what was your perspective?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, General Clark of course is the joint task force Rita commander, and he was in that briefing with the president. And he's just about now to get on a helicopter and take his first aerial tour to survey the damage in his area as well.

As you said, at that briefing for the press, one of the main concerns is that essentially they feel they're creating the model for how they're going to respond in the future, based on the experience both from Katrina and Rita. And so they wanted really also learn from Rita as well as Katrina about to what extent the U.S. military needs to take the lead role in catastrophic disasters.

But again, the immediate concern is, again, the focus on the search and rescue. So far, they say they've rescued about 600 people all together, all of the rescue response agencies, more than 60 have been plucked by helicopter, from U.S. military and Coast Guard helicopters, despite the high winds, heavy rain and the low visibility that they had to deal with.

General Clark, again, will be flying over the affected areas of east Texas today. His counterpart, General Honore, up in a helicopter, will be doing the same thing over parts of Louisiana, and then they'll be coordinating to make sure that the FEMA supplies, emergency relief supplies get in, where they're supposed to go.

So again, they're learning as they're going. They're trying to create a new model for how the U.S. military will coordinate with local agencies in responding to these disasters, and the president here in San Antonio this morning trying to show that he's taking a firsthand, lead role in that as well, in formulating how that's going to go from here on -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jamie McIntyre, on the phone from San Antonio, Texas, Randolph Air Force base. Thanks so much.

Well, it is too early to know the full extent of the damage to oil refineries along the Gulf Coast and whether it will impact gas prices. Btu already, ExxonMobil says there was some damage to its refinery in Baytown, Texas, because of Rita. Volero Energy reports significant damage to a refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, that will need at least two weeks for repairs, and Shell reports wind damage to its Modeva (ph) facility in Port Arthur.

There's a vital concentration of oil refineries all along the Texas and Louisiana coast, most closed before Rita hit.

Well, crews are working to restore power to about a million electric customers in four states. Rita toppled utility poles, snapped trees and sparked fires in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Meanwhile, the New Orleans-based subsidiary of Entergy Corporation has filed for bankruptcy protection. It's facing huge rebuilding costs and loss of revenue following Katrina.

Here to talk more about that is Dan Packer, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans. Good to see you.

You all certainly have your hands full. Not only do you still have power that has not been restored to folks after Katrina, but now a whole lot more people, a million in all, is that right, households without power, and that including now, post-Rita?

DAN PACKER, ENTERGY NEW ORLEANS: That includes all of the Entergy territory, Fredricka. For us, it's still about the same as it was, about 200,000 customers in Entergy New Orleans service territory, which includes just the city of New Orleans.

WHITFIELD: And how far are we looking before you'll be able to even entertain the idea of restoring power, particularly to those 200,000 in the New Orleans area, given that you got a new deluge of water in the lower 9th area?

PACKER: Well, the lower 9th Ward is only a part of the city. We've continued our restoration efforts in all of the rest of the city where it's dry. We're putting our backbone systems in, and when people are ready to come back in as per the re-entry plan, or the repopulation plan, we'll be able to provide power to them once all the inspections are done.

So we feel that we are kind of ahead of the game right now.

The biggest thing for us is to get through this Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection plan that we have put in place, which is not a typical one. In that we're doing debtor-in-possession financing with our parent company, Entergy Corporation, which is a very financially sound company. And we're going to use the money that they loan us primarily to make sure we can pay all our vendors, which I know they need that reassurance, to pay our employees and keep our benefits going, and mainly so that we don't stop the restoration effort here in New Orleans. We really need to make sure that we continue that, and have this city ready to go when we get ready to repopulate.

WHITFIELD: So, Mr. Packer, people hear bankruptcy protection, and immediately they start thinking about the prospects of a company folding altogether. Those who are receiving services from that company no longer being able to get such, and you talk about restoring power still, as though everything is going about normally for the Entergy Corporation. How do you reassure the customers that there's a long-term dependency that they can have on your company, not only for energy could be restored right away, but that perhaps it won't be hitting them in the pocketbook later?

PACKER: Well, you know, the earliest corporate entities for this company has been here since 1833. And we're really not going anywhere. We've gone through a lot of disasters here and there, and we expect that we'll always been here in one form or another to provide utility service.

The big thing for us is that this particular bankruptcy, as I said, is not because of mismanagement or bad management. It's because of a natural disaster. And we have a very financially sound corporation backing us up and providing what we call debtor-in- possession financing. So I feel pretty good that we'll be here.

WHITFIELD: All right, Dan Packer, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans. Thank you so much.

And we'll be right back with our continuing coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Water has begun to recede this morning in the New Orleans lower 9th Ward, and crews are working to plug levees fractured by Katrina and swamped again by Rita. CNN's Mary Snow is following that development. She joins us now from New Orleans.

And is that in addition to the fact that they're also trying to respond to the fact that there was an overflow of water in other parts of the levee?

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Fredricka.

If you could see behind me, that is the lower 9th Ward, and even in the time we've been here this morning, water has receded. It's still, though, so badly flooded.

And this happened on Friday, when the levee over here, the Industrial Canal levee, there had been a breach from Hurricane Katrina. Crews had patched it up. But then on Friday, when New Orleans started feeling the remnants of Hurricane Rita, an 8-foot overtopped that break in the levee, and poured into the lower 9th Ward.

Now, right now, as you can see, there are some sandbags there. The military had been dropping those sandbags yesterday afternoon. They have about 200, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. They are going to continue that today.

And the next big task now for engineers is to pump that water out of the lower 9th Ward. They expect to do that later this week, but because the pumping stations here are out of commission, they're going to have to wait a couple of days, then pumping will begin for about a week, according to engineers.

Now, as this goes on, the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is hoping to restart his plan to get people gradually back into New Orleans. And he says that as early as tomorrow, he may start bringing business owners back into some sections of New Orleans, and also residents into the Algiers section.

Residents actually had been moving into Algiers last week. It did not suffer as much damage as other parts of New Orleans, it had electricity and water, but then the program was put on hold when Rita started coming through. This as engineers really say that they feel disheartened that all the work they've been doing in the past couple of weeks, they are having to redo again. But they say they're determined to first put a temporary fix on these levees, and then permanently fix them -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Mary Snow in New Orleans, thank you.

Still to come on CNN SUNDAY MORNING, search and rescue. FEMA teams will be out in force today in Lake Charles, Louisiana, hit hard by Rita. We'll have a live report.

Also ahead, coming home. Houston is appealing for evacuees to return home a bit later, depending on which quadrant they live in. But are they listening? We'll talk with the city's mayor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: After the storm, searches, cleanup and returning home as Rita weakens and moves north as a depression, tropical depression.

Welcome back. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN Center in Atlanta.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien, live on the northern outskirts of Houston, watching traffic on I-45 as the first home coming day begins in this city. Back to you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Miles, we'll get back to you in a moment.

And first we want to bring some pictures out of Washington, D.C., where just moments ago the vice president was released from George Washington Hospital where he had been since yesterday, undergoing what is considered a minimally invasive endovascular procedure, meaning they were trying to repair bulges or aneurysms behind both of his knees.

That procedure involved using a stint covered by a synthetic graph into the artery into his upper thigh and then threading it into the aneurysm and anchoring it into place.

It was considered a successful surgery, taking place on both the back of his knees. And it -- they had been thinking that perhaps he would be there for a couple of days, but now looks like an early release, being released today.

And now you're looking at live pictures of President Bush. He'll soon be emerging from that limousine, heading on to Air Force One. He's at Randolph Air Force Base out of San Antonio, Texas. He'll be making his way over -- over Texas and then on to Baton Rouge.

Now here are those pictures now of Vice President Dick Cheney being released from George Washington Hospital in the nation's capital after what was considered a successful surgery. He had aneurysms or bulges, under both of his knees. And the doctors were able to repair that, saying if they didn't repair it most immediately this weekend that long-term effects potentially he would maybe have to be -- have his legs amputated. So of course, trying to avoid that, those vascular surgeons were able to do the successful -- what's considered a minimally invasive endovascular procedure.

Now on to Louisiana. Lake Charles and a lot of smaller towns in the area were smacked by the strongest winds, followed by a foot of rain in some parts. Federal search and rescue efforts are getting underway this morning.

CNN's Jason Carroll has been out assessing the situation in Lake Charles. He joins us now live -- Jason.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, things looking much better here in Lake Charles. At this point, the water levels at Lake Charles have gone down. Much of the water has receded in downtown. That's certainly encouraging news for the folks here, as well.

At this point, emergency crews, they are out. They are trying to assess just how bad the damage situation is here and the surrounding areas. But as we've taken a look in the surrounding areas this morning, things are looking much better now than compared to just 12 hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Several hours after Hurricane Rita's eye wall passed Lake Charles, Louisiana, a powerful force was still being felt.

Lake Charles' waters rose several feet throughout the day, causing flooding downtown and in other areas. The surge battering anchored casino river boats. At its peak, wind gusts topping 100 miles per hour blew out windows and knocked out power.

Michael Renover (ph) was at home with his generator by his side.

(on camera) Hell of a morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.

CARROLL: How did you fair last night?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm good. Freight train, freight train, all night long. You could hear the house creaking and feeling like it's pressed by the wind, but I think we're the lucky ones. I think we're extremely lucky. I suspect people south of town who have newer homes are going to be in a lot of trouble.

CARROLL (on camera): We're in an area about 20 minutes south of downtown Lake Charles. You can see what type of damage we're seeing here. You can't even tell what this business was.

And then back over this way, an apartment building, it also sustained heavy damage. Across the street, this is the Meese State University (ph). Their athletic field also was badly damaged from Hurricane Rita.

(voice-over) The main building and surrounding buildings at Lake Charles regional airport also battered by the storm. The terminal's roof partially collapsed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Horrible. This is horrible. This is a bunker building, but I'm going to tell you right now, it was rough.

CARROLL: Alan Kratzer (ph) was here the whole time. He feels a hurricane alone could not have done this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It took tornadoes is what happened.

CARROLL (on camera): You think so?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have to agree. When you look at the terminal building, you'll know there was tornadoes.

CARROLL (voice-over): There were tornado warnings in parts of Louisiana at the time.

And now, streets remain blocked by downed trees, power lines and flood waters. And police are asking all those who evacuated to stay away at least until Monday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Many of the roads and streets certainly looking better this morning but still not safe enough for people to be out here. Still not safe enough for those who evacuated to return. There is still no power, no water, still a lot of work to be done in Lake Charles, Louisiana -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Indeed. Jason Carroll, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Thank you.

Well, Texans are quickly hitting the highways on their way home after evacuating for Hurricane Rita. The rapid return comes even though the governor of Texas is asking people to stay put, only return to their homes in certain quadrants at a time.

CNN's Miles O'Brien joins us now from Houston with more on that -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, Fredricka, if the traffic on Interstate 45 all this morning we've had here for about three and a half hours now is any indication, it appears that the citizens of Houston have heeded those warnings and are taking their time getting back in, coming in, as they have been instructed or suggested, depending on how you look at it.

So far, so good. That's what we've heard from the police chief. Let's check in with the mayor, Mayor Bill White, on the line with us now. Mr. Mayor, what are you seeing now? What's going on in the traffic centers? Any bottlenecks as people try to return home this day?

MAYOR BILL WHITE, HOUSTON, TEXAS: The traffic is looking pretty good to us right now. We have traffic plan and traffic control in place. We've communicated well with our citizens.

Yesterday we had a serious problem at 71 and 10, and we went on the air and warned people to obey the instructions or abide by the instructions of local authorities.

Obviously, where you have incident scenes, where you have some places where you've had a collision, that we see from time to time, then you get a traffic congestion just like you would in a normal situation, but we have tremendous law enforcement presence to remove those incidents as quickly as possible so the traffic moves.

O'BRIEN: now, this is voluntary program, no arrests, no fines for people who decide to go back home even if it isn't their day. And today it is the northwestern quadrant of the city. Do you think that you need a little more teeth behind it, or do you think that truly the citizens will comply?

WHITE: Well, you know, citizens ought to use their common sense. There's not -- a lot of places in the city don't have power right now; a lot of traffic signals aren't working. We have debris removal crews out there. But there was lots of fallen trees.

School doesn't start on Monday. Nonessential employment functions won't be -- employees won't be required to go to work on Monday. And people ought to show compassion for their fellow humans, because we need some of our nurses and medical personnel, the people at the gas stations, to arrive unimpeded.

So I think the Houstonians will do a good job. We have a great, effective city with common sense, as you saw in the Katrina relief and the evacuation to get over two million people from the region out before Rita.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Mayor, perhaps the one that happened here, more than anything, was that you were a little to persuasive. You probably wanted about a million and a half people to evacuate, and about 2.5 million did. As you look back on what you said, do you think you perhaps scared people too much?

WHITE: No, I don't. I think if Rita would have been on the course of about -- that it was projected about 72 hours ago, then Houston would have experienced the exact same thing that Lake Charles, unfortunately, experienced. If that would have occurred in the nation's fourth largest city, that would have been a disaster, unless there was evacuation.

We did not want a New Orleans here. And of course, citizens were less persuaded by me, with due respect, than they were all the pictures and the lessons from Katrina. What we need to learn is to have a state-wide and national plan for traffic control 100, 200 miles away from a metropolitan area, as well as stashes of fuel along the way. I think we've got to view this as a learning experience and improve that planning.

O'BRIEN: Are you concerned, Mr. Mayor, that next time, given what happened to people here, these 15- to 20-hour grid lock traffic jams, running out of gas that they won't comply?

WHITE: Well, I hope, and this is what we're going to say, say to people at the time, that if anything, people ought to start out earlier, so it isn't -- folks aren't jammed in a 24 hour period of time.

We accomplished what we wanted to, which was to have the freeways cleared well in advance of the incoming wind gusts and when it hit the coast, because we didn't want people stranded along the motorways. And we accomplished that.

But people need to start earlier and they need to realize this, that you cannot predict the weather. That hurricanes move. They can move in any direction, and if you evacuate, you know, two or three times, and have only saved your life once, that once is enough.

O'BRIEN: Mayor Bill White, city of Houston, thanks for your time this morning. Good luck as the city repopulates over the next few days.

WHITE: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Miles. Thanks so much.

Much more of our coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. But first we want to show you some pictures of Air Force One taxiing there in San Antonio, leaving the Randolph Air Force base. On board, the president will be traveling over the Rita-ravaged areas of Texas and then on to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

He met with military officials there at Randolph Air Force base, who briefed him, letting him know that some sort of national search and rescue plan needs to be put in place. These are some of the lessons learned post-Katrina and Rita so that federal, local and state rescue teams don't overlap one another, come the next natural disaster. And then from Baton Rouge on to Washington, D.C.

And we'll be right back.

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WHITFIELD: Hurricane Rita's bottom line, no reported deaths but considerable destruction, nonetheless. Wind damage like this, blown off roofs, are obvious in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Flooding throughout Louisiana's southwest parishes has search teams now looking for stranded survivors. Meanwhile, in Galveston and much of Texas, the Gulf Coast area, that is, damage is widespread but less than what many expected from Hurricane Rita.

Officials in the Lone Star State are asking evacuees not to return to their homes and businesses just yet but many are coming back to the Houston area anyway.

Well, FEMA was heavily criticized for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina, so what is the emergency agency doing differently in the aftermath of Rita? CNN's Gary Nurenberg joins us now from FEMA headquarters in Washington with an update on that.

And obviously, post and even pre-Rita on the minds of a lot of those FEMA workers was Katrina and how they responded. What did they do differently?

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, no question about that, Fredricka. In large part, they pre-positioned a number of search and rescue teams, disaster medical assistance teams and supplies in areas that they thought would be hit by Rita so they could quickly move to the areas that were affected.

Twenty-four hours after the storm hit, FEMA says it is still too early for a solid damage assessment. First responders are still in many of the areas and are reporting back in, and we are told that life saving operations, according to FEMA, are still going on this morning.

There are some 10 task forces that this morning were moved to Ft. Worth. Task forces skilled in particular in response to this kind of disaster. They're awaiting ward from those first responders on exactly where they will be deployed later today and where they're needed. There are 10 of those disaster medical assistance teams that have been deployed this morning.

Also, we're told that 18 of the 27 search and rescue teams that have been deployed. This morning FEMA says it simply doesn't know, simply doesn't know, presumably because of communications problems, exactly how many of those search and rescue teams are right now in the field.

FEMA says that there are a million customers in the area without power but says it expects that number to rise during the day as new assessments come in. FEMA says that there's a lot of attention being paid today by inspectors at those 1,900 gas and oil facilities that dot the region, particularly to see if Rita caused any kind of damage that could lead to environmental consequence.

FEMA says it is much more pleased with the response to Rita than it was with Katrina, saying that this time there was better coordination between federal, state and local officials.

President Bush was briefed by military officials slightly more than an hour ago as they responded to their own response to Katrina and to Rita. Military officials told the president, at least one of them, a general there, telling him that the country needs a search and rescue national plan, and then went on to recite an instance in New Orleans where five choppers responded to one family in need, called that response a train wreck and told the president that a national plan was needed for a national search and rescue response.

We're told by FEMA just a few minutes ago that 8,700 persons yesterday registered for FEMA assistance, bringing the total since Katrina, Fredricka, to now more than 900,000 seeking that kind of aid.

WHITFIELD: All right. Pretty significant numbers. Thanks so much, Gary Nurenberg in Washington, D.C.

Now I want to take you into the skies over southeast Texas, particularly over Jefferson County, which is where the hard hit Beaumont and Port Arthur cities are. And you're looking at a picture right now, a live picture of Governor Rick Perry, getting his view of and assessment of the damaged area.

A picture you see after natural disasters like this, with the governors getting up in the air via a helicopter or airplane, getting a bird's eye view of the devastation, so that they can go back and meet with their emergency response teams and try to ascertain the areas that need the greatest attention and what kinds of supplies and resources they need in order to get back on their feet.

And we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back with our continuing coverage after Hurricane Rita, right after this.

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WHITFIELD: I want to check in again with Jacqui Jeras before the close of this hour to see what the -- what kind of effects Rita has left behind.

JERAS: Well, still plenty of rain, some gusty winds across the Tennessee Valley and the treat of tornadoes. There you can see the watch box in effect.

And look at this strong line. It starts in southeastern Louisiana and goes all the way through Mississippi and extends just to the east of Memphis. And this line across the Vicksburg area, getting close to Jackson, we're particularly concerned about for the threat of some rotation.

Now, there was a warning which was in effect. Let's see it pop up. Oh, yes, it's extended further northward. Yazoo City also getting hit very hard with these squall lines, yesterday and today both.

We expect the activity to pick up even more this afternoon once we get some daytime heating. You can see Memphis doing better now, maybe just a few sprinkles but a very strong line to the east of there, producing winds around 50, 60, maybe even 70 miles per hour.

Now, what's left of Rita is picking up some forward speed, moving to the north and east about 20 miles per hour. So that's some good news that it's moving fast. That will reduce the flooding threat. But we can still expect to see anywhere between probably two to four inches of rain will be coming, but maybe a little bit heavier in some of these isolated storms.

We've got a storm system for the nation's mid section that's helping to drive that up to the north to the east. So that is some very good news.

Notice the weather expected today across parts of Texas. Some of the evacuees trying to make their way home. If you're able to do it, go ahead and wait a couple days. The weather not pretty. You don't want to be stuck in traffic. You know what it was like leaving. And look at the conditions. They're very similar to that: 99 in Dallas, 99 in Houston and the heat index 105 -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you very much, Jacqui Jeras.

"LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER" is coming up next. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Nice working with you, Jacqui, as well as Miles these past four hours this morning.

O'BRIEN: Fred, it was a great pleasure. You know, it's going to be a hot day, as you just heard from Jacqui, here in Houston, heat index up around 100. We sure don't want to see what we saw Thursday and Friday here with this grid lock, 15- to 20-hour traffic jam.

So far it appears the people of Houston and wherever they evacuate to, evacuated to, are heading the call of the mayor to take their time. I mean, it is a little bit of common sense. Take your time. There's no worry to come home. Your house is safe is the message from authorities. And so far, if Interstate 45 is any indication, they're listening. We've all learned an awful lot of lessons from Katrina, haven't we, Fred?

WHITFIELD: We have, indeed. And nobody wants a next time. We know it's a very active hurricane season and the next hurricane season opening again next June. And we know that all the emergency preparedness groups say they want to be ready by June of next year. But certainly, we're all crossing our fingers that perhaps this is the last that we have to report on something like this again.

O'BRIEN: Let's hope, let's hope.

WHITFIELD: All right, Miles O'Brien. Thanks so much. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER" up next.

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