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CNN Live Sunday

Debate Continues on When Residents Should Return to New Orleans

Aired September 18, 2005 - 17:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR, CNN LIVE SUNDAY: Could trouble be brewing for the Florida keys? We'll have the latest on a tropical system that's already prompting evacuations. And some are ready to get back into portions of New Orleans, but are they returning too soon? Why the head of Federal relief efforts in the region thinks the mayor needs to slow things down.
Hello, I'm Fredericka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. This is a special weekend at CNN. If you've been watching, you know that we're working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to find children separated from their families by hurricane Katrina. The children on the left side of your screen have been reported missing. In cases where we have photos, we're showing them. In other cases, no images are available. If you have information about any of these children, please call 1-800-843-5678. That's 1-800-the- lost. Your help could reassure parents and potentially reunite families.

With memories of hurricane Katrina still painfully fresh, there's another weather worry brewing in the Atlantic, and it has already sparked evacuation orders of visitors in parts of the Florida keys. Let's get the very latest from CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano. Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi Fredricka. The latest out of the National Hurricane Center is that our once tropical depression number 18 has become tropical storm Rita. So that's the latest for you. Right now, it's about 380 miles to the east-southeast of Nassau, Bahamas and it's heading to the west at about 10 miles an hour. So that will take it into the Florida straits here tomorrow night, Tuesday morning. And the forecast is for it to strengthen. Why? One, there's some quiet air here in the atmosphere, so hurricanes like that. You can see these clouds beginning to fan out, so this is becoming more typical of that satellite signature that you've been seeing the past couple of months.

And also the waters right here, you need 80 degree water temperatures to really get hurricanes to get going. There are some buoys along the Florida keys that are as warm as 89 degrees, so there's some seriously warm water there and this thing is going to strengthen because of that.

All right. This is what's going on as far as watches and warnings is concerned. Tropical storm warnings across the lower Bahamas and that means that the tropical conditions are happening right now or will happen in the next 24 hours. These yellow areas are hurricane watches. So hurricane conditions are possible in the next 36 hours. And as of 5:00, I think some of the watches now have been extended into parts of southern Florida, both on the east and west side. So we'll try to update that graphic for you here in the next few minutes.

As far as the track is concerned, this is from earlier today, but I just eyeballed the latest track and it doesn't really change that much as far as the 5:00 p.m. advisory is concerned. They expect it to become a hurricane over the next 24 to 36 hours. That's rapid development and then skirt across the Florida keys and into the Gulf of Mexico. And then what it does from there, we just don't know yet. Right now our latest guess is to take it closer to the Texas coastline as opposed to the Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama coastline, so that that would be welcome news for folks in Louisiana, but not so much for folks in Texas. First things first though, Fredricka, we have to deal with it heading across the Florida keys and we expect that to happen early Tuesday morning. More updates throughout the evening.

WHITFIELD: All right. Rob Marciano, thanks so much, in the weather center.

Well, south Florida isn't taking this new storm system lightly. Many people are already under mandatory evacuation orders. Mayor James Weekley of Key West, Florida, is on the phone. Mr. Mayor, this evacuation comes earlier than most. Do you trust the visitors south of the seven mile bridge will take this order seriously?

JAMES WEEKLEY, MAYOR: First of all, let me make it understand it, real clear that the only evacuation notice that has been given is for our visitors or nonresidents. We have not issued any orders for any of the residents at this time. We had 15,000 bikers in Key West this weekend for an event, so at 12:00 today we issued the evacuation notice for the visitors and nonresidents and they have been taking it serious. They have been leaving the city and heading out of the county.

WHITFIELD: And so how closely have you been working with the National Hurricane Center to ascertain when you should have put this mandatory evacuation order for those visitors into place?

WEEKLEY: We have been talking to them since last night. They were giving us briefings as to what was going on. About 8:00 this morning, they called for a conference call and we had that at 11:00. At that time is when we made the decision to put the evacuation order in place for the visitors and nonresidents south of the seven mile bridge.

WHITFIELD: Well, this is earlier than usual, isn't it, for Key West and other southern keys to issue this kind of mandatory evacuation for even visitors when the storm is a depression? Now we know it is officially a tropical storm, tropical storm Rita, but it was a depression when you issued the order.

WEEKLEY: That's correct. The anticipation was that it was going to increase its intensity and be a tropical storm and we were looking at a category one at some point also as what the weather service was telling us, and we have -- we have under a mandate from the state of Florida, we have a 24-hour evacuation time, so we have to get the visitors and nonresidents out.

WHITFIELD: How much did hurricane Katrina impact your decision?

WEEKLEY: Katrina, you know, like -- this is -- this is like an annual event for us, it seems like, and with Dennis earlier this year, and Katrina, you know, we took heed to what happened with those. Katrina caught us unexpectedly. We thought it was going to be further north and it came a little bit further south than we got some impact from that, but nothing serious, thank goodness. So now we're a little more cautious and making sure we give notice at a reasonable time for people to, in fact, be able to leave. We normally -- normally about 72 hours out for our nonresidents when we give an order anyway, so that's about where we are now.

WHITFIELD: All right. Mayor James Weekley of Key West, Florida, thank you so much.

WEEKLEY: Sure, any time. Bye now.

WHITFIELD: U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen is taking issue with Mayor Ray Nagin's suggestion that people should be able to reenter parts of New Orleans. Nagin has said he would like to repopulate key areas of the city within the next week and a half, but earlier today on CNN, Vice Admiral Allen said pollution and a lack of clean drinking water are among several of the reasons why people should delay their return.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICE ADMIRAL THAD ALLEN, DIR., U.S. COAST GUARD: They're still trying to reconstitute the 911 system. Some of these people may not have telephone service. There's not power and they're potable water, so you put people into that situation, and if you have an extreme weather event, you're very, very challenged to try and get notifications and to get them out. We think that should be the subject of some very deliberate planning and a very thoughtful approach of how you reenter the city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Well, some of the residents and even shopkeepers in the Algiers area just across the river from New Orleans are rather anxious to get back to some normalcy. Many of them are back home assessing their properties, even going to the neighborhood coffee shop. That's where we find our Keith Oppenheim in Algiers. How are things going?

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not too bad Fredricka and right now I'm going to make -- or try to make an interesting transition from outside to inside. On the outside of the street here, you can see there's a good bit of garbage that has to go, including refrigerators. I'm going to take you inside a business, a business which on the outside has plyboard over the windows, this sign saying, looters will be shot. And we're going to walk in and head up the steps to the second floor of this business. It belongs to Ed and Hillery Moise. They own three restaurants in the French quarter and what they have is electricity, running water. They even have cable TV and Internet service in here. As we take a turn at the top of the steps, you can see how different it looks like on the inside from the outside. Ed and Hilary, how are you?

ED MOISE, ALGIERS RESIDENT: Good.

OPPENHEIM: Give us a sense of what your feelings are on this Sunday as you look toward a Monday when officially people can come into this neighborhood and things may restart on some level?

MOISE: Well, we're feeling pretty encouraged at this point that the infrastructure is built strong enough that we can have some guests, some folks come back into the city. So we're real excited that we might be able to get open in a couple of weeks. Our restaurants are -- as long as we get power to the French quarter, we'll be able to open up for business.

OPPENHEIM: I'm going to talk about those restaurants in a moment but just concerning this really beautiful environment here, Hillery. It's kind of a shock. I got to tell you, we've been in some rough places in the last couple of weeks, and you walk into a place like this. It's surprising to think that I'm in New Orleans right now when I look at your place.

HILLERY MOISE, ALGIERS RESIDENT: I know. It's a real blessing that we're in a high enough area. I think the Indians knew exactly what they were doing. They built here. They knew where the flood zones were in New Orleans, in Algiers point and also across the river, so we're very fortunate to be in this area.

OPPENHEIM: Let me ask your husband, Ed, do you think that it is going to be problematic in anyway way? In other words, if you have a lot of people coming into Algiers, starting tomorrow, are there enough basic services like grocery stores, things to keep people going if they move back in?

ED MOISE: I think there is going to need to be a balance point between the amount of people that come in town and the services that they can provide. If a huge influx of guests come into town, people coming to work, coming to be back in the city, and there's not enough services to be had relative to --

OPPENHEIM: What's needed.

ED MOISE: Food, gas, lodging, the whole nine yards, it's going to be really difficult if a big group of people come in. So there's got to be kind of a balanced with that.

OPPENHEIM: Thank you both very much and I'll just mention the restaurant situations, since they have three businesses in the French quarter. And earlier Ed was telling me that it's his hope that his three restaurants will open in the French quarter by the first of October, dependent, Fredericka, on whether or not there's enough power, enough electricity so he can really clean things up in those businesses. Back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks, Keith. They are, indeed, among the lucky ones.

A top priority in the recovery process is putting families back together. Many children and parents were separated by the chaos caused by Katrina. This weekend CNN has been working in cooperation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help reunite families. So far 16 cases have been solved, nine of them directly because of our coverage. Gary Nurenberg is at the center headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, with an update. Gary.

GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Going to update those numbers are going up. Let us update you on two brothers we told you about earlier this morning on CNN, Joshua and Justin Ratcliff, 16 and 15 years old. We reported them missing last seen as they were waiting for a bus in Jefferson, Louisiana. When you see Charles Pickett on the screen, you know that there's good news. You've been working on the case. I understand that you found these two brothers.

CHARLES PICKETT: Thank you. Thanks again for CNN exposure. We had a caller call in this morning, gave us a good idea where these boys were in Houston. I've been in touch with social services in Houston and the families and we've gotten them back in touch with each other and arrangements are going to be made to reunify a mother and the children this week.

NURENBERG: I understand the good news for the family may be bad news for a football team in Texas, though.

PICKETT: Well, I understand that these boys are pretty successful. Joshua is supposedly a pretty good football player, and he is playing on the football team there in Houston.

NURENBERG: Mr. Pickett, thank you very much. That Fredericka, shows you the process can really work. Let's highlight another case that we want you to know about. This is Jacob Henry. He's eight years old now. As you can see from the picture, he has some kind of breathing device attached to his neck. He became separated from his care takers as a result of hurricane Katrina, taken to a medical facility in New Orleans and arrived in a medical facility in Houston on September 1st. The people who were taking care of him there would like to know where his family is. Jacob Henry, eight years old. If you have any information, 1-800-the lost and hopefully Fredricka, we'll be able to get back to you if Jacob Henry's family is found.

WHITFIELD: I hope so. It's so heartbreaking. All right. Gary Nurenberg, thank you.

Paying the recovery costs associated with hurricane Katrina, up next, why there is growing concern on Capitol Hill. We'll have a live report from Washington.

Also ahead, they're helping tens of thousands of Katrina victims get back on their feet. And as New Orleans begins to reopen for business, the American Red Cross ramps up its relief efforts.

And be sure to stay tuned to CNN throughout the week. We'll look at the business owners and the residents as they come home to their neighborhood and we'll be looking at it zip code by zip code. Tomorrow we will focus on the 70114 zip code, which is the Algiers district, an historic neighborhood. It's home to 2300 people and located directly across the Mississippi River from the French quarter. CNN will be there as residents begin rebuilding their lives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Members of Congress have arrived in New Orleans to see the devastation caused by Katrina. House members taking part in the trip represent the homeland security and transportation committees as well as the congressional black caucus. Virginia Congressman Tom Davis, who chairs the government reform committee, is leading this delegation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM DAVIS (R) VIRGINIA: There's no economy here. There are no jobs here. You walk down the street, there are no office buildings. There's no McDonald's open and there's only electricity in a very small part of the city today. People obviously need to come back and look at their property and take stock of what they're going to do next. Those kind of things have to happen. This city is a long way from being ready to be open for business. We need to get it open for everybody as quickly as we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Members of Congress approved billions in hurricane relief in the days after the storm hit, but with spending on Katrina expected to reach at least $200 billion, many lawmakers worry about paying for the recovery costs. CNN's Elaine Quijano is at the White House with more on that. Elaine.

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. With $60 billion, more than $60 billion pledged so far, the Bush administration right now is not talking about specifics, about how much the eventual massive recovery and rebuilding efforts could cost. Now, today as the president returned to the White House from a weekend at Camp David, he offered no hints on those numbers or how the Federal government will pay for the reconstruction efforts. But as you said, some estimates putting that cost at around $200 billion.

Now what President Bush has said is that he wants to cut unnecessary spending and does not support raising taxes to pay for hurricane Katrina. He thinks doing so would slow down the economy and hurt in the long run. He very much wants to see his tax cuts kept in place but some Democrats say the president is not being realistic. They believe Americans need some frank talk about the tough financial decisions ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D) DELAWARE: We have very hard choices to make and I think we should confront the American people straight up and say, folks, look, These are what our needs are. This is how much it's going to cost. We're going to have to make choices that are hard ones. We're looking for the president to make a recommendation as to what priorities he'll set, but it's going to cost more, in addition to organizing better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: Now, even some in the president's own party are expressing concern. They say they're not just concerned about the cost of rebuilding, but also the cost of protecting the country and the effect on the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JON KYL (R) ARIZONA: We probably have not adequately faced up to the total cost, not only of the reconstruction here, but all of the things that we're going to have to do in the future and we got to be more candid with the American people about what this homeland security is going to cost us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUIJANO: And Senator Jon Kyl there, one of several Republicans in Congress suggesting that perhaps one way to help pay for Katrina would be to delay the prescription drug benefit, perhaps also delay implementing some of the programs in that massive transportation bill that was recently passed, but certainly all agreeing that some difficult decisions lie ahead. Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Elaine Quijano at the White House. Thank you.

Signs of progress in Iraq. The war-torn nation nails down details of its draft constitution, but there's no let-up in the violence. We'll bring you an update at the bottom of the hour.

Up next, the growing strength of hurricanes hitting the U.S. What exactly is behind their powerful punch?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: FEMA has been criticized for what some argue was a slow and insufficient response to hurricane Katrina. Now the agency is coming under fire from one of its own. CNN's Tom Foreman explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Homeland security chief Michael Chertoff is being haunted by the past, by yet another accusation that he and the bosses at FEMA, an agency he oversees, ignored warnings of how bad Katrina would be.

LEO BOSNER, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MGMT SPECIALIST: We told these fellows that there was a killer hurricane heading right toward New Orleans.

FOREMAN: Leo Bosner is a long-time FEMA employee and an official of the employees' union. He helps right the daily national situation update to inform government leaders in all departments of potential problems. Very early on the Saturday morning before the Monday Katrina hit, that report told Chertoff and his FEMA leaders in bold type about the state of emergency on the coast. It said, New Orleans is a particular concern because much of that city lies below sea level. If the hurricane winds blow from a certain direction, there are dire predictions of what may happen in the city. Comparisons were noted with 1969's great killer storm Camille, but Bosner says the warning bell did not produce a strong reaction.

BOSNER: And a couple of fellows were saying, why aren't we doing more? What's going on? We felt devastated. We felt let down. We had done our job, but the bosses didn't do theirs.

FOREMAN: Homeland security has admitted that even with the monster storm closing in, Secretary Chertoff was working from his home, not his office that Saturday, but they say, he was in close contact with FEMA headquarters and with top man Mike Brown, now resigned, but at the time talking with the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm confident, Mike, that you and your team will do all you can to help the good folks in these affected states.

FOREMAN: The employees union which has helped raise these latest accusations has been unhappy for quite some time with the Bush administration's treatment of FEMA, so politics could be at play. But Secretary Chertoff is staying away from counter accusations. He knows he'll have to answer all these charges before Congress anyway so his office is saying the focus now needs to be on the people who still need aid. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Before Katrina slammed ashore as a dangerous category four hurricane nearly four weeks ago, it was a more powerful category five storm. Now many are focusing on the intensity of recent hurricanes. Here's our technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After years of relative quiet in the Atlantic, monster hurricanes seem to be breaking out all over. Now a study in the journal "Science" appears to confirms there really has been a greater number of strong hurricanes in recent years.

Peter Webster, Judy Curry and colleagues crunched the numbers on 35 years of data from hurricanes and cyclones all over the globe. The data suggest the number of storms per year has remained relatively stable over time, but in recent years, the strength of the storms has spiked.

PETER WEBSTER, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: The intensity of hurricanes in all of the basins including the Atlantic Ocean have increased substantially so there are more category four and five hurricanes. SIEBERG: So what's behind the more powerful hurricanes? Scientists say natural climate cycles like el Nino and la Nina play a big role. The study says the spike in storm intensity mirrors a rise in ocean surface temperatures which in turn may be linked to global warming. But it's too soon to make that link conclusively.

JUDITH CURRY, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: There's certainly a significant component that is associated with greenhouse warming, how much is associated with natural variability, that just hasn't been sorted out.

SIEBERG: Other scientists point to a government funded study that suggests global warming will affect hurricanes gradually over the next 100 years or so.

CHRIS LANDSEA, NATL HURRICANE CENTER: And so if that's the case, that may be good news that global warming may not have an appreciable impact on hurricanes.

SIEBERG: Whether it's global warming or cyclical, most experts agree that the monster hurricane trend is not going to ease up any time soon. Daniel Sieberg, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Parts of New Orleans attempt to come back to life this weekend, but is it too soon? Up next, what business owners are saying about their stores and their city.

And Iraq's brain drain, how the never ending violence there is driving away its best and brightest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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