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ROBERT SIEGEL INTERVIEWS MICHAEL CHERTOFF |
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by Robert Siegel September 2, 2005 NPR, All Things Considered (Transcript from the radio interview at NPR, by Tara Carreon, american-buddha.com) SIEGEL: From NPR News, this is All Things Considered. I'm Robert Siegel. Conditions and public order continued to deteriorate in New Orleans today. Looting and violence spread, evacuation efforts moved slowly. Four days after Hurricane Katrina, people were still being plucked from rooftops, officials reported little progress in plugging the damaged levees and floodwalls. President Bush has proposed $10 billion dollars for the flooded city, and parts of the Gulf coast hit by the storm. Congress will return to Washington from summer break to approve it. Heavily armed National Guard were evacuating people out of the squalid conditions of the Superdome. They were boarding buses for the Astrodome in Houston. But it emerged that people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center, about eight blocks away, were in more than dire straights. We'll have more on that in a moment. Earlier we spoke with Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary who is overseeing the recovery operation. I asked him what a Louisiana official told one of our reporters, that there are just not enough National Guard on the scene, and that this is a federal disaster, not a local one. CHERTOFF: In fact, there is a significant National Guard presence, not only in Louisiana but in New Orleans, and getting bigger every day. Let me tell you that as we speak, there are approximately 7,400 National Guard working on this in Louisiana. Of those, there are 2,800 in New Orleans itself. Today, tomorrow, and the next day, we are going to be adding 1,400 additional guard every single day. In addition, we are bringing federal and local law enforcement authorities from Louisiana and other parts of the country to supplement. There is, I think there is going to be a more than adequate, and there is a more than adequate law enforcement presence in New Orleans. SIEGEL: Let me ask you about images that many Americans are seeing today, and hearing about. They are from the Convention Center in New Orleans. A CNN reporter has described thousands of people, he says, many of them -- you can see them in the pictures, mothers with babies, in the streets, no food, corpses and human waste -- our reporter, John Burnett, has seen the same things -- how many days before your operation finds these people, brings them at least, food, water, medical supplies, if not gets them out of there?
CHERTOFF: Well, first let me say
there have been deliveries of food, water, and medical supplies to the
Superdome, and that's happened almost from the very beginning.
SIEGEL: But this is the Convention Center. These are people who were not allowed inside the Superdome. CHERTOFF: Well, but, people, you know, there have been, we have brought this to the Superdome. There are stations in which we have put water and food and medical supplies. The limiting factor here has not been that we don't have enough supplies. The factor is that we really had a double catastrophe. We not only had a hurricane, we had a second catastrophe, which was a flood. That flood made parts of the city very difficult to get to. SIEGEL: Um-hum . . . CHERTOFF: If you can't get through the city, you can't deliver supplies. So we have in fact, using road ____, been getting food and water to distribution centers and places where people can get them. SIEGEL: But if those people who haven't gotten them, if they ask our reporter, "When am I going to see those supplies? When does it get to me?' What's the answer? How many days until you reach them? CHERTOFF: I think the answer is that we are as much as humanly possible, given the fact that we still have feet of water that have not drained out of the city yet, we are moving those foods and supplies as quickly as possible. People need to get to areas that are designated for them to stage for purposes of evacuation. We're contending with the force of Mother Nature. SIEGEL: But, and what is your sense, I'm trying, I mean, by the weekend, do you expect that everybody in New Orleans will have some kind of food and water delivered by this operation? CHERTOFF: I, I, I, I would expect that unless people are trapped in isolated places that we can't get to, I would expect that everybody's going to have access to food and water and medical care. The key is to get people to staging areas. There are some people who are stranded, who are not in imminent danger. They are not people that we're going to necessarily rescue immediately. We're going to try to get them food and water so they can sustain themselves until we can get to them. SIEGEL: We are hearing from our reporter, and he's on another line right now, thousands of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans with no food. Zero. CHERTOFF: As I say, I'm telling you that we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. And, uhm, you know, the one thing about an episode like this is, if you talk to someone and you get a rumor, or you get someone's anecdotal version of something, I think it's dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place. The limitation here on getting food and water to people is the condition on the ground. And as soon as we can physically move through the ground, uhm, with these assets, we're gonna do that. So -- SIEGEL: But Mr. Secretary, when you say that we shouldn't listen to rumors, these are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many, many other hurricanes, they've covered wars and refugee camps. These aren't rumors. They are seeing thousands of people there. CHERTOFF: Well, I would be, I say, I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the Convention Center who don't have food and water. I can tell you that, I know specifically the Superdome, which was the designated staging area for a large number of evacuees, does have food and water, and that we have teams putting food and water out at other designated evacuation areas. So, uhm, you know, this is uh, and we've got plenty of food and water if we can get it out to people. And that is the effort we're undertaking. SIEGEL: I would just like to ask you. There is said to have been a report in 2001 which listed a catastrophic hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three worst potential disasters the country could face. As someone who inherited FEMA, and who came to this obviously with 911 being the preoccupation that faced us all, have you had a plan somewhere in an office near yours that says "Huge hurricane hits New Orleans -- here's what we do in case of that catastrophe?' CHERTOFF: FEMA has plans for all foreseeable catastrophes. They have had plans for this kind of catastrophe, and they exercised and worked on these plans. Recognizing this was a possibility over the weekend, we pre-positioned an unprecedented amount of food and water and ice. This mandatory evacuation was ordered and begun, but at the end of the day, as with any titanic struggle with nature, a plan only gets you so far in the face of the reality of struggling with miles of city that are underwater. SIEGEL: And our reporter said 2,000 people at the Convention Center without any food. CHERTOFF: Now I understand, I can't argue with you about what your reporter tells you. I can only tell you that we are getting water and food and other supplies to people, where we have them staged, where we can find them, where we can get it to them. And, you know, if you're suggesting to me that somehow the National Guard missed a group of people, I will certainly call up and make sure they don't miss them. But I'm not in a position to argue with you about what your reporter has been telling you. SIEGEL: Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Secretary. CHERTOFF: Thank you. SIEGEL: That's Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of Homeland Security. |