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by CNN
September 2, 2005;
Posted 5:17 PM EDT
The official
version; then there's the in-the-trenches version
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) --
Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with
statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more
desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those
stranded in the city was more visible.
But the conflicting views on
Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as
reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director
Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN
correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:
Conditions in the Convention
Center
FEMA chief Brown:
We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all
available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they
have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See
video of Brown explaining how news reports alerted FEMA to convention
center chaos. -- 2:11)
Mayor Nagin:
The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of
supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people.
CNN Producer Kim Segal:
It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was
nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all
just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in
front of you.
Evacuee Raymond Cooper:
Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention
Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told
two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention
Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us
what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.
Uncollected corpses
Brown:
That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I
actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here
or there," I'm just not going to speculate.
Segal:
We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her)
off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the
wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others
they were willing to show us. (
See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36 )
Evacuee Cooper:
They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen
told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in
there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people
dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found
out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like,
no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there
was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.
Hospital evacuations
Brown:
I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the
evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta:
It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for
it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the
basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine
the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no
place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most
unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist
as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200
patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper
and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly
... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday,
halting all the evacuations.
Dr. Matthew Bellew,
Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in
this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The
conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about
all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing.
They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine,
is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up.
It's pretty rough.
Violence and civil unrest
Brown:
I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means
that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls
and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no
reports of that.
CNN's Chris Lawrence:
From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control
of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations.
The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it
wasn't safe to be out on the street. (Watch
the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)
The federal response:
Brown:
Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually
a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.
Homeland Security
Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical
element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New
Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of
Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in
bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are
suffering.
Crowd chanting outside
the Convention Center: We want help.
Nagin:
They don't have a clue what's going on down there.
Phyllis Petrich, a
tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are
invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that
the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have
not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.
Security
Brown:
I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad
people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that
every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's
somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. (
See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)
Chertoff:
In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New
Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National
Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400
today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.
Nagin:
I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting
the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300
law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military
personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.
Lawrence:
The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding
around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five,
six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.
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