[Lou Dobbs:] Thank you, Wolf. Good evening, everybody. Tonight, FEMA director Michael Brown has been recalled to Washington. His recall follows scathing criticism. A Coast Guard admiral is now in charge of the entire Hurricane Katrina relief operation. We'll have the full report. New charges tonight that the federal government is making it easy for corporate America to make big profits from the massive hurricane recovery effort, at the expense of middle class Americans and taxpayers, and at the same time cutting the pay of those who will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Three hundred thousand children are among the million who have fled the disaster zone. Tonight, we tip our hat to the state of Texas and the Texans who have achieved the impossible in helping those students get back to school. One week after President Bush declared FEMA director Michael Brown is doing, quote, "a heck of a job," Brown has been recalled to Washington and removed from direct responsibility for hurricane relief operations. Brown's removal comes amid rising outrage about Brown's performance and new questions about his qualifications for the job in the first place. The Coast Guard chief of staff, Vice Admiral Thad Allen, replaces Brown as director of the huge relief effort along the Gulf Coast. The relief operation continues. And there was some good news today. Rescue workers say they are finding fewer bodies than had been expected. The number of dead in the city could be significantly below earlier projections of 10,000. New Orleans police are also concerned tonight about hurricane survivors, survivors who still refuse to leave that city. Between 5,000 and 10,000 survivors remain in the city, but officials say law enforcement agencies will only use force to remove those people as a last resort. Jeff Koinange, in New Orleans, reports on the developing plans to force people from their homes. Drew Griffith will report on one group of residents who refuse to leave the city. Ed Lavandera in Alexandria, Louisiana, reports tonight on the return of Louisiana National Guard troops from Iraq. They now face destroyed homes and missing family members. We begin our coverage tonight with Jeff Koinange Jeff.
[Jeff Koinange, Cnn Correspondent:] That's right, Lou. And we spent most of this day with various law enforcement agencies and also volunteers from across the country, trying to gently persuade New Orleanians to leave the city. As you well know, the water has become more stagnant. The threat of an outbreak of disease is imminent, but I'll tell you, a lot of people not wanting to leave their city. And there's two basic reasons: one, a lot of them have pets. They don't know whether to leave their pets behind or wherever it is they end up, will their pets be allowed? Two, a lot of them have valuables in their homes, and they don't know whether their homes will be secure once they leave the city, despite the fact that there are over 19,000 military and police personnel spread across the city. The city is basically secure. In fact, we ran into the commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina, Lieutenant General Russell Honore, and he told us basically his mission is twofold. One, he's not going to force anyone to leave this city. Two, he's going to make sure that when it's time to retrieve the bodies, the remains of those who are dead, he doesn't want the media around. Why? He doesn't want their family and friends to see their bodies for the first time on television without them being there. So what he's saying basically is, Lou, he's treating this entire situation with a lot of sensitivity.
[Dobbs:] A lot of sensitivity, Jeff, but as you well know and everyone in the television news business knows, the way in which photographs and video is taken of the recovery of those bodies can be done so that they are not identifiable. Why this clamp-down, and is the media resisting it?
[Koinange:] Well, the thing is, up until now, 12 days later, people have freely been going and filming bodies. And I'm sure there's been a lot of backlash, people calling radio stations, TV stations and saying, "Hey, I just saw my loved one on television for the first time." And now, can you just imagine, 12 days later, what state those corpses are in? Because for the most part, this has been a search and rescue mission. It's now going to become a search and recovery mission. It's going to be a lot worse conditions of those corpses, Lou.
[Dobbs:] And Jeffrey, we want to tell our audience that CNN has filed suit in federal court to resist any agency that attempts to constrain our coverage in any way of this search and rescue and recovery operation in the Gulf Coast. Jeff, thank you very much. Officials in New Orleans say nearly everyone who is prepared to leave the city voluntary has already left. Those residents who remain are declaring they will resist any efforts to remove them. Drew Griffin has our report tonight Drew.
[Drew Griffin, Cnn Correspondent:] I'm going to show you why, Lou. We haven't shown a lot of this on TV, but there are really two sides of New Orleans, the one that was flooded and the other that really wasn't hit that bad at all. We have been driving for the past six days through many parts of this city, the French Quarter, the lower Central Business District, all through the Garden District, and these areas have tree limbs down, a little bit of wind damage, but no flooding, never any flooding in many of these areas. And some of the residents, like a fellow we ran into, James McLaurin, says he's got four weeks worth of water. He actually has water pressure in his home, so he can flush his toilet. And he has phone lines. He says the city is just trying to scare him out.
[James Mclaurin, New Orleans Resident:] See, what they're doing is coming around trying to brainwash you to go for you to go and leave your place so when you come back you won't have anything to come back to.
[Griffin:] He says the soldiers keep coming around asking him what size he is, what size body bag he's going to need. He says if he needs a body bag, it's going to be when he dies from old age and he knew that anyway. They are staying put. He says he has plenty of food. What these people would really like is for the city, or anyone, or maybe some of these soldiers, to just come in and clean the place up and get the power back on. He sees no reason why he should go.
[Dobbs:] And he obviously is a man of considerable strength and character, and it's easy to understand and to sympathize with his view. How soon will we see, do you believe, and best do you understand, Drew, that power return to that area?
[Griffin:] Lou, every night we have to leave here through the barricade set up and through the curfew zone. And each night that power creeps closer and closer in. Really, on the western side of New Orleans, it is the kind of hurricane recovery that I've seen in so many hurricanes. Two or three days after the hurricane, the power trucks come in. They start rebuilding the system. It's really not that bad. I would guesstimate, not being a power company official, I would guesstimate he's going to have power four or five days from now.
[Dobbs:] Let's hope that your guesstimate is accurate. Thank you very much, Drew Griffin. As emergency workers and troops continue their search and recovery operation, hundreds of Louisiana National Guardsmen have begun to return from combat duty in Iraq. Those National Guardsmen are returning, of course, to an uncertain future. Many of them have lost their homes in this flood disaster. Some have lost contact with their families. Ed Lavandera reports from Alexandria, Louisiana Ed.
[Ed Lavandera, Cnn Correspondent:] Hi, Lou. Well, this isn't the homecoming that many of these soldiers expected to receive when they deployed from here a year ago. The 256th Brigade Combat Team had been in Iraq patrolling the Baghdad Airport for the last year, dangerous duty. And in the last couple weeks, they've been doing that job, all the while in the back of their mind trying to get as much news as possible to what happened to their families. So about 500 of the 3,000 reservists that will be coming back started coming back today and will be coming back over the next couple days, 500 or so of those have been directly affected by the hurricane, either loss their homes. It could even go higher. Officials say many other soldiers these are reservists we're talking about work in the oil industry. Many of those jobs just don't exist right now, so that number could go higher as to how many were affected. An emotional homecoming. We saw one soldier break down after he learning that a cousin had been killed in the hurricane flooding. Other soldiers learning that their homes were destroyed, their personal property destroyed. And of these many soldiers coming home to learn that their families are spread out all over the country now. And that's why some family members are saying that the turnout for their homecoming wasn't as high as big as they the departure when they left here a year ago. An emotional day for them.
[Dobbs:] Ed, thank you very much indeed. Ed Lavandera. Tropical Storm Ophelia has strengthened into a hurricane once again tonight. Ophelia, which is packing winds now of 75 miles an hour, is slowly moving away from the eastern Florida coast, but forecasters say the storm could still pose a threat to the coast next week. They say Ophelia could change direction and make landfall in Georgia or the Carolinas, but obviously, it is difficult to forecast that far ahead. Still ahead, a special report on the recall to Washington of FEMA director Michael Brown. Also, uproar in Congress over the failure of leadership in this hurricane disaster at all levels of government. We'll be examining this unprecedented partisan bickering in the midst of a national crisis. Also tonight, charges that the federal government is making it easy for corporate America to pay low wages to Americans who will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast. We'll have that special report. And chaos and disorder in Louisiana's judicial system. We'll report on the immense challenges facing Louisianans after the destruction of their courts and the dislocation of thousands of prisoners. That story and a great deal more coming right up.