New Orleans Braces for Rita; Galveston, Texas, Evacuates for Storm; Congress Debates Ways to Pay for Hurricane Reconstruction; Rita Could Impact Gas Prices
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Good evening, everybody. Tonight we will be, over the course of the next hour, monitoring the approach of Hurricane Rita. It's intensifying fast as it storms forward Texas and western Louisiana. Just two hours ago, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Hurricane Rita to a highly dangerous Category 5, winds of more than 165 miles an hour. As many a million people in the Houston and Galveston areas of Texas have now been told to evacuate their homes. The massive hurricane is expected to strike early Saturday. Deborah Feyerick in Galveston, Texas, reports on the huge operation as that area tries to evacuate residents before Rita hits. And Mary Snow in New Orleans, reporting on the desperate effort there to secure the city from what could be a major new flood disaster. We begin with Mary Snow in New Orleans -- Mary.</s>MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, just as New Orleans was pumping out its water, it is bracing for more. The Army Corps of Engineers saying that the city is essentially dry. But the concerns here are the weakened levees and pumping stations, weakened, of course, by Hurricane Katrina. And as you mentioned, crews are scrambling to reinforce those levees to protect the city from whatever they expect from Hurricane Rita. Now we spoke earlier today just a short time ago with General Bruce Berwick. He is the task force engineer for Task Force Katrina. He inspected three damaged levees here in New Orleans today. After inspecting them, he says he is cautiously optimistic that the city is well prepared for what Rita will bring. He's saying with the current forecast for New Orleans, he believes at this point, that the worst may be minor flooding.</s>COL. BRUCE BERWICK, JOINT TASK FORCE KATRINA: If we got two to four inches over a long period of time, we'd be OK. There would be some minor flooding in some locations, but we'd have on hand the pumps, which is kind of the second line of defense, both portable pumps and the permanent pumps. A number of those have been brought back on line so we can get the water out of the city quickly.</s>SNOW: Now the general also notes, though, that he has learned that the enemy is hurricanes and water, and he says he is not counting on the forecast and he says everything needs to be done to shore up those levees -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Mary, thank you. And as Mary Snow reports, it is important to note that Lake Charles is just over 160 miles from Galveston, Texas. As many as a million people are fleeing Hurricane Rita in Texas tonight. Deborah Feyerick has the report from Galveston -- Deborah.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, we just want to show you, we're just here at the ocean. You can see the waves pretty calm right now. A lot of seagulls, a lot of gulls, but nothing much. A lot of people have been evacuating all day. As a matter of fact, 1,500 caught buses this morning out of Galveston. Those are the ones who didn't have their own transportation. So the city set it up so that they'd be able to get out of town in time. Nursing homes have been evacuated. Two hospitals have been evacuated. Everybody got the vulnerable and the sick out first. Everyone saying this is the big lesson we learned from Katrina. This is the sea wall that everybody's going to be talking about, Lou. And you can kind of get a sense of just how high it is. The waves are expected to go over this wall once they do hit. Now the mayor, not overly concerned. She says unlike New Orleans, if the city does floods, she fully expects the water to run back out. New Orleans it sort of was like a bowl, and that's why the water has been there for so long. But here, she really believes that after three days, the city will dry out. So she and her officials have enough provisions for about three days. After that, they think they will be able at least to assess just how much damage has been done, get out there and see what's going on. But they don't know when people will be allowed back in. The mandatory evacuation expected to go into place within the hour. That's for everybody else who didn't get out of town. If you got out before now, you're able to go wherever you wanted to go. If you get out now, you're going to have to go where the authorities tell you to -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: And as you are there, give us some sense of how many people remain in the city.</s>FEYERICK: We can tell you, we were walking around some of the city streets just getting a sense. It was vacant. There was just nobody there. Even at the height of midday, all of the restaurants were boarded up, all of the stores were boarded up. Everybody kind of getting out of town. The highways now are jam packed, we are told, heading north. Nobody knows which direction this may take, which direction it may turn. But again, most of the coastal cities are being evacuated. Galveston, because it's connected to the mainland by a bridge. People will not be able to get over that bridge once the winds pick up to about 40 miles. And that's expected to happen Friday morning. That's why the mayor wanted everybody out within 72 hours of any of the storm making land -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Forewarned is forearmed. And we thank you very much, Deborah Feyerick, from Galveston. 1933 was the worst storm season in this country's history. That year, 21 named storms tore through the Atlantic region. But this hurricane season could break that 72-year-old record, the National Hurricane Center predicting that 18 to 21 major storms could occur this year. Hurricane Rita is now number 17. There have only been three Category 5 hurricanes that have made landfall in the country's history. We have never had two Category 4 hurricanes ever make landfall in one season. And Galveston is the site of the deadliest hurricane in American history. Eight thousand people died when a Category 4 storm hit that city back in 1900. One hundred five years ago, 44,000 people lived in the area. Since then, six major storms have hit the Texas coast. And today, 60,000 reside in Galveston. More than five million people live in the Houston area. And joining me now is the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, who did an outstanding job in predicting the path of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, two days before Katrina struck New Orleans, he personally called several state and local officials along the Gulf Coast to warn them about the hurricane's potential devastation. Hurricane Rita is expected to strike Texas over the next two days. Max, good to have you here. This storm has risen to a Category 5. What is your latest forecast now for Rita?</s>MAX MAYFIELD, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: That's at the top of our scale, I'm afraid, Lou. And this is, you know, just an extremely dangerous hurricane right now, has the potential to cause damage similar to what Katrina did near and to the northeast, where the center crosses the coast. And we put up the hurricane watch from Cameron, Louisiana, down to Port Mansfield Texas. This is going to become a larger hurricane and will likely impact much of the Texas coast and the southwestern portion of Louisiana, as well. The center may not get there until early Saturday morning. But the one important thing here, the winds are going to be so strong, so far out from center, that they're going to get there sometime Friday morning. So people really have tonight and all day tomorrow to make their preparations.</s>DOBBS: And that is time in which to make preparations and to get out of harm's way. Max, your best judgment now, and we all understand despite the remarkable job that you do of predicting the hurricane path and giving us all critical life saving, notice that this storm -- these storms, at any time, can shift. What is your expectation now for the center point, if you will, of your projections right now?</s>MAYFIELD: Right now, we have it somewhere between Port Lavaca and Galveston Bay here. But we're forecasting it to turn up more towards the north here before landfall. That's going to be tricky. Right now, we have a high pressure system over Texas here that is going to keep it down on a more western track here for awhile. But with time, that high pressure system is going to move off to the east, and a trough of low pressure will come in from the west, and that's what we think will stir it up here over the mid- to upper Texas coast. But it's going to have an impact on a large area. The closer you are to that eye, the higher the storm surge and the worse the impact will be.</s>DOBBS: Max, we're all used to, also, the prospect of a storm diminishing in strength after it builds over warm water to, in this case, a Category 5, as you suggest, a dangerous, potentially monstrous storm. What is the likelihood we'll see the storm diminish as it moves towards landfall?</s>MAYFIELD: Lou, there's certainly a chance it will happen. We're actually forecasting it to weaken a little bit. I really don't want to, you know, overly emphasize that. It could well be a Category 4 hurricane. The water temperature is a little bit warmer -- a little bit cooler as it gets close to the coast there, but people need to be making their preparations here for a Category 4, possibly Category 5 hurricane.</s>DOBBS: Max Mayfield, as always, thank you very much.</s>MAYFIELD: Thank you, sir.</s>DOBBS: The Bush administration today made a concerted effort to demonstrate that it is ready to deal with this hurricane. President Bush today declared states of emergency in both Texas and Louisiana. The White House clearly determined tonight to avoid any repeat of the massive criticism of the federal government's part in the slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Dana Bash has the report from the White House.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A stark warning from the president: Hurricane Rita is coming. Get ready for the worst.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for New Orleans and Galveston. I urge the citizens to listen carefully to the instructions provided by state and local authorities and follow them.</s>BASH: This public plea, nearly identical to one issued from his Texas ranch the day before Katrina hit.</s>BUSH: We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities.</s>BASH: But the president and top aides know this time they can't blame inadequate readiness and response on an unprecedented, unimaginable disaster. They're trying to learn from mistakes. First, make sure evacuations happen immediately, to avoid devastating images of despair. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, out of sight as Katrina barreled toward the Gulf Coast, blanketed the airwaves to talk about Rita, pledging...</s>MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We're trying to get people out of the path of the storm as early as possible. And that means also making provisions for people in nursing homes and hospital, to get them out a couple days in advance so that they're out of harm's way and they don't need to be rescued.</s>BASH: Bush officials promise they're pre-positioning supplies and personnel earlier this time: 45 truckloads of both water and ice, eight truck loads of meals ready to eat, disaster relief and rescue teams, so needed in New Orleans, ready to go.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To remain on a mostly westward track for the next two days.</s>BASH: In private, aides insist Mr. Bush has morphed from delegater to detail man, trying to learn from early miscommunication, especially with local officials. The Louisiana governor thought she asked for what she needed for Katrina. The president waited for specific requests.</s>DAVID PAULISON, ACTING DIRECTOR OF FEMA: I've done this for a long time.</s>BASH: Now he's got a new head of FEMA, who says things like that won't happen again.</s>PAULISON: We are making extraordinary effort to make sure that we have a coordination system in place where we are talking with those people, like I said, almost on an hourly basis, making sure they have the things to do the job. We are not making any assumptions in this storm.</s>BASH: To that end, Admiral Larry Harris, who greeted the president before a briefing on Hurricane Rita, is now heading to Texas to lead the federal effort on the ground.</s>BASH: And administration officials say one of the biggest lessons learned is working with the Pentagon now to use their assets instead of waiting until after the storm hits. It's all part what the White House hopes will be a second chance, showing the president taking control at a crisis. Also hoping to turn around his plummeting leadership in terms of American approval -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Dana, let's all hope that there's no need to have a second chance here and that this storm moves to a remote area where no damage can occur and no lives be lost. Thank you very much, Dana Bash from the White House. Congress is also rushing now to help hurricane victims, lawmakers in fact today approving a $6 billion package of tax breaks on top of $62 billion in emergency spending that's already been authorized. But the cost of the relief operation could eventually be more than $200 billion. In fact, that is the broadest consensus expectation. Some members of Congress are now asking where all of that money will come from. Joe Johns reports from Capitol Hill -- Joe.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, many conservative Republicans first got elected by demanding spending cuts and smaller government, and now they're looking for ways to make room in the budget for Katrina. So today, about 18 or so members on the House side offered some suggestions of what to cut. We've heard a lot of these ideas before, like slashing funding for Amtrak, getting rid of public broadcasting. There's also a suggestion of postponing the Medicare prescription drug benefit for a year. Right now, it's supposed to kick in in 2006. Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana is helping collect the ideas, though he admits it's hard to get people to agree right now.</s>REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: We are here because last week the president of the United Stats and the leadership of the Republican majority in Congress challenged our membership to come up with offsets, to come up with recommended cuts in government spending, to ensure that we would not have to force a tax increase on the American people or greater debt. And so we're responding to our leadership.</s>JOHNS: One of the ideas that's causing heartburn on the Hill is revisiting the highway bill that the Congress just passed. By most accounts it was loaded up with about $24 billion in special projects. The chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Don Young, who pushed that bill through, doesn't like this idea one bit.</s>REP. DON YOUNG (R), ALASKA: This is grandstanding by individuals that don't know what they're talking about. I'll go back to that. It's ignorance; it's stupidity. They don't understand what they're saying.</s>JOHNS: Young says it's not up to Congress to handle that money now, because the money's all gone to the states. He does have a suggestion of his own, however. Creating disaster bonds, he says, so that people can invest in the rebuilding of the hurricane zone -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Stupidity and ignorance. Interesting what the quantity would be generally believed to be on Capitol Hill on both parties. Why does the congressman believe it's stupidity and ignorance to pay for what the government spends?</s>JOHNS: Well, he's saying you just simply can't do it with this money because it's already been sent out to the states. It's the state's money, and that Congress has to do it another way. He says there's no way you can just pay for Katrina, because there may be other hurricanes coming down the pike. We know that's true. He wants a broader approach. And he says disaster bonds might be one idea, Lou.</s>DOBBS: That would just be more debt, any way you count it. Thank you very much, Joe Johns. Next week, Congress is calling on the foremost expert on the government's inept response to Katrina to give testimony. Former FEMA director, Michael Brown, will testify about a subject he knows well: the poor coordination between federal, state and local officials before and after Katrina struck. Brown resigned last week after intense criticism of FEMA's slow response to the disaster. We'll have much more on Hurricane Rita ahead here. A quarter of this country's oil production lies in the path of Hurricane Rita. So are many oil refineries. We'll have a special report for you on the risk of a new surge in oil and gasoline prices. And a new threat to Americans who have already lost so much in the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The federal government suspending -- considering the suspension of fair wage rules for even more workers in the Gulf Coast region. And we'll be going to Galveston, Texas, for a live report on those who are facing the possibility of a second devastating hurricane in less than a month. Stay with us.