Hurricane Rita Wobbles Northward, Breadth of Storm Threatens Galveston, Fragile New Orleans; Texas Officials Try Break Gridlock, Stalled Evacuees Sleep In Cars
KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: It is Friday September 23. If you are in southeast Texas there is a monster in your rearview mirror. It is big. It is bad. And it is coming to the Lone Star State. The heart of the storm named Rita is less than 24 hours from landfall. Also, seeing red, motorists spend hours inching every so slowly away from danger. And the dark clouds are forming, how will Texas and Louisiana and other states along the Gulf respond as this monster approaches. For the next two hours we are live all over the region. From the Time Warner Center in New York. This is DAYBREAK. I'm Kelly Wallace in today for Carol Costello, who is on assignment in New Orleans. Good morning, everyone. Thanks so much for waking up with us. Bonnie Schneider is in for Chad Myers this morning and she will join us with the forecast in just a moment. Also ahead, Hurricane Rita has wiggled and wobbled a bit, its eye is still on the upper Texas coast. And it is slow going, very slow going getting out of the way and patience is running out. But first, these stories "Now in the News": Get ready for the oath. Senate confirmation of John Roberts as the nation's 17th chief justice is all but assured. The Senate Judiciary Committee has given him the thumbs up, the full Senate votes next week. The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has climbed to 1,910. A U.S. soldier was killed and another was injured when an improvised explosive device went off while they were on patrol. Another suicide car bomb has rocked Baghdad. It happened just over an hour ago, in a central square where insurgents frequently target U.S. and Iraqi troops. Police say one person was killed and eight wounded. In the West Bank Israeli troops killed three Palestinians today. The troops had surrounded a building where armed Islamic Jihad members were believed to be hiding. The three were believed to be involved in earlier attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers. And now to our top story this Friday morning. Hurricane Rita, tracking it all for us, in the Forecast Center, Bonnie Schneider in today for Chad Myers. Good morning, again, Bonnie. So the big question, where is the storm and when is it going to hit?</s>BONNIE SCHNEIDER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Kelly we do have brand new updated information for you on that track. I'll get to that in a moment. Just take a look at this storm, a powerful one. Maximum winds are still at 140 m.p.h. This storm is maintaining its strength as a Category 4 hurricane. Now the movement has changed, since overnight. It is moving to the northwest, slowed down just a tad, moving at nine miles per hour. So we were anticipating that northwesterly turn, it has already taken place and you can see this pretty evident on our satellite perspective. Let's take a look at the latest track now for Rita and we can tell you where the storm is headed. Hurricane warnings continue, these warnings were posted since yesterday and not changes, really, where tropical storm warning includes the metropolitan area of New Orleans. And the hurricane warning includes the city of Houston, it is an inland hurricane warning, as well as a coastal one. Now looking at the track, this just came down. And it really gives us a better idea of where Rita is headed and when. Looking at this latest information, we can see that by early Saturday morning the storm is approaching the Texas coast and it should make landfall sometime between 2 a.m. on Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Saturday. But I think we're looking more towards mid to early morning landfall on Saturday. Somewhere around the Texas coast between Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas. Now, remember this is a very wide storm. We have hurricane force winds that extend outward of 85 miles. So that's why we're looking a hurricane warning that stretches well into Louisiana. And when the storm makes landfall in its path we're looking at about eight to 12 inches of rain with isolated amounts even higher, storm surge could be as high as 18 feet, even more than that, maybe even 20 feet. Especially right along the storm's path. But I mention the size of the storm, it also means that southwest Louisiana is still under the gun, even though the direct path does not go there, we're still going to see those hurricane force winds. And we're expecting to see hurricane force winds for the upper Texas coast and possibly even southwest Louisiana as early as tonight. So keep that in mind those tropical storm force winds will be felt earlier on, I think this afternoon. So the storm slowed down just a little bit but the path is a little bit more clear of what we can expect. We may see some wobbles though and some slight changes in intensity as we approach landfall, Kelly.</s>WALLACE: All right, Bonnie. We'll be checking in with you in about 15 minutes and watching your reports very, very closely. Bonnie, thanks so much. As Rita is rolling on, here's what we know is happening in those areas already experiencing the outer bands of the storm. Traffic has eased in the city of Houston, but on the fringes it really is an absolute mess. Two Texas National Guard tanker trucks, carrying 5,000 gallons of gas each, have been sent to aid motorists who are trying to get out of Houston and are running out of gas. The trucks are also supplying gas stations along the evacuation route. Oil refineries in the Houston area are shutting down, including the largest refinery in the nation. Plants in the area make up more than a quarter of the nation's refining capacity. Also, President Bush will fly to San Antonio today to visit with emergency workers. Later he'll fly to U.S. Northern Command Headquarters in Colorado, where he will watch as Hurricane Rita arrives. Well, we want a first look at the massive evacuation of Houston and the vicinity. Joining us with that is Reporter Jennifer Thompson of our Houston affiliate, KPRC. Jennifer, thanks for joining us. When we talked to you yesterday it was pretty much a parking lot behind you. What is the situation this morning?</s>JENNIFER THOMPSON, REPORTER, KPRC: Quite the opposite, Kelly. In fact, this highway 45, Interstate 45, nobody is even on it. Yesterday? This was a parking lot. Right now the only cars that you see are the ones that are stalled. The ones that are either out of gas or the people are just too tired to continue on now. Heading north, just to the right of your screen, if you were to keep on heading north, just about a mile up the road, you would see bumper-to-bumper traffic once again. So really, all along 45, this is a very eerie scene. It doesn't normally look like this. Nobody is really on the road. Now, down there, it looks like, with the 18-wheelers, those have essentially just pulled over the side of the road, again, either out of gas, or they are too tired to drive on. We are in a parking lot right here. People are sleeping in their cars, in fact, this couple out here, this man is sleeping on a cot. He looks like he's got somewhat of a comfortable set up. We talked to a man that in his car, in this white car down the way, over here. He is from Port Arthur, Texas, evacuated, separated from his wife and children in another car. They went onto Conrow (ph), Texas, which is just about 20 miles north of here; got into a motel that they had made reservations for. However, he ran out of gas and he is separated from them. So many stories like this. So many separations, unfortunately, like Katrina, separations like that. People want to know, where can we go? What shelters are available? All the shelters up and down 45 are full. So right now we are just trying to get information, these people, where they can go before the storm starts to roll in, in just a few hours, Kelly?</s>WALLACE: Important information, Jennifer, definitely, to get out to all your viewers. Jennifer Thompson of our affiliate in Houston KPRC. We appreciate it. And we apologize, we had some slight audio problems with that. And we apologize again. Moving now to the city of Galveston, which was nearly wiped off the map in 1900 when an a hurricane killed between 6,000 and 12, 000 people. Now it is a virtual ghost town after residents took heed to evacuation orders. Lisa Goddard, of CNN Radio, traveled to Galveston yesterday. But right now she joins us early this morning from Houston. Good morning, Lisa, great to talk to you again. First, give us a sense of what you saw on the ground in Galveston yesterday?</s>LISA GODDARD, CNN RADIO CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kelly. Galveston is a city of contrasts right now. It is almost completely emptied, but there are a few people riding around on bicycles. A few people that have that beach attitude wearing Hawaiian shirts, Panama hats, almost in a good mood yesterday before the hurricane. Glad that they stayed, they told me, because they thought the hurricane was going to go farther east. Now that was a dangerous idea for them and I'm not sure if they have stayed behind this morning. But they may have had a false sense of security yesterday. At the same time in Galveston, it was amazing, they still had gas at the pumps. I took that as a sign of how early people evacuated from Galveston and that people gassed up and went. There still was fuel there as of yesterday.</s>WALLACE: And Lisa, of course, you're in Houston now. Some of the latest information, the mayor of Houston telling people that if you're not in an area that is likely to be affected by this hurricane, to stay at home because of all the congestion and traffic problems we're seeing on the interstates, out of Houston. What can you tell us about that?</s>GODDARD: Yes, I can tell you some people are in fact deciding to say home. Some people who had decided that days ago. Some people I spoke to in the last hour saying they had planned to leave this morning, but now they're going to keep themselves and their pets at home. You know, that mayor's statement was also interesting. Because in that statement he also said that he had expected there to be emergency fuel in place around the city, but that that fuel plan, to be there ahead of the storm, actually never arrived.</s>WALLACE: Lisa, you bring up such a good point, and I was going to ask you about that. In Katrina we learned about things that we thought federal, state, and local officials should be doing before the storm, that didn't happen. I guess some of us are asking the same question here. They had to anticipate that a lot of people would be trying to get out of the city, why didn't they have those resources ready for the people that need them?</s>GODDARD: Absolutely, 4 million people live in Houston. And Houston has flooding problems just with tropical storms. We know that there were plans in place, including the reversal of lanes on I-45. So, it is not clear exactly why there were apparent delays in putting those plans in place. Delays that may have meant fuel never arrived. May have meant people had to spend 24 hours on the road, when they could have gotten to their locations a lot sooner. Obviously, we're going to hear a lot more about that after the storm hits and we find out what the destruction is; but just like you, everyone here has a lot of questions.</s>WALLACE: Lisa, thanks so much. Lisa Goddard of CNN Radio, one of the newest members of our CNN Radio team, joining us live this morning from Houston. Thanks so much. Well, many of the people heading out of Houston and Galveston, Texas are doing so with their pets. That is something we've been talking about a little bit this morning. And that is something that many of the Katrina evacuees were not allowed to do. So, some lawmakers are proposing legislation that would require state and federal emergency officials to allow evacuees to take their pets with them. Thousands of animals were left behind in the Katrina evacuations. And many people refused to leave if they couldn't take their pets along with them. Still to come on this busy Friday morning here, at DAYBREAK, the high price of gas. What will it mean for the future of the U.S. economy. As Ali Velshi will tell us, the R word, for recession, is cropping up more and more. And New Orleans may be affected by the second big hurricane in four weeks, we'll go live to Carol Costello for the latest from that soggy city. But first, here is a look at what else is making news this Friday morning, September 23.