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The Situation Room

20 Years Since Hurricane Katrina Made Landfall; FEMA Workers Put On Leave After Signing Letter; IDF Declares Gaza A "Dangerous Combat Zone". Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 29, 2025 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been two decades since Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. And today, we're looking back and talking about the lasting effects from that catastrophic storm. This is how the Situation Room covered it 20 years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer, and you're in the Situation Room where we're getting satellite feeds from all along the Gulf Coast right now, battered by a monster storm. Standing by, we have CNN reporters across the area to bring you complete coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

Happening now, New Orleans is ravaged by winds up to 120 miles an hour. As water pours over levees entire neighborhoods are submerged. Part of the roof rips off the Superdome as rain pours in on thousands huddled inside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Almost 1400 people died as a result of the storm, and more than 1 million people in the Gulf region were displaced. Katrina is still the costliest disaster to ever impact the U.S. And the destruction was so catastrophic, it was almost impossible to grasp the full picture. Journalists reporting from the disaster zone were critical to understanding the full scope of the disaster.

And Jeanne Meserve was one of them. She was in New Orleans for CNN when the storm hit and stayed to cover the immediate aftermath. Here's one of her dispatches from the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As I left tonight, darkness, of course, had fallen, and you can hear people yelling for help. You can hear the dogs yelping, all of them stranded, all of them hoping someone will come.

But for tonight, they've had to suspend the rescue efforts. It's just too hazardous for them to be out on the boats. There are electrical lines that are still alive. There are gas lines that are still spewing gas. There are cars that are submerged. There are other large objects the boats can't operate, so they had to suspend operations and leave those people in the homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I can hear the real emotion in Jeanne's voice. She's here with us today. Jeanne, it's really nice to have you here. When you hear that, what goes through your mind?

MESERVE: Oh, the horror. Just -- it was so unexpected, Pamela. We had been downtown. It looked like New Orleans had dodged the bullet. And then to go out there and see the scope, the vastness of the flooding and those sounds in particular still resonate in my head 20 years later.

BROWN: The sounds, tell us about that.

[10:35:00]

MESERVE: Well, as I mentioned, you're hearing people desperately yelling for help in the dark at that point, and the dogs too really got to me, although clearly the human life was the priority. That -- those for some reason, the audio is really what has imprinted itself most deeply in my head, as well as certain images, certain faces, certain landscapes.

And there also is an emotional side to it. Remembering how I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my body when I looked at people who had lost absolutely everything who clearly were in a state of shock. It really does not seem like 20 years.

BROWN: You feel so helpless, right, in that situation. So, as you look back 20 years ago, what are the images that still stand out to you from then?

MESERVE: As I mentioned, some of the faces, some of the landscapes. I remember driving that night, that first night back into the city and seeing people huddled underneath overpasses, trying to find some sort of comfort and shelter. And the only illumination were our headlights. And it sounds apocalyptic, it looked apocalyptic. Never in my life did I ever think I'd see anything like this in the United States. And frankly, that was -- that's another thing that really, really sticks with me.

We are the United States. We have fought wars. We have overcome all kinds of logistical challenges, and yet, in New Orleans we couldn't do it. We couldn't muster what was needed to respond to those people who were so desperate. that first night we didn't have images. I was simply operating from the phone. But in the coming days, they saw images of bodies outside of the convention center. They saw people without food, without water.

CNN was able to get people into the city. People were able to find a way in to come to reinforce our numbers, but the government couldn't do it. They couldn't or wouldn't get in what was needed to help those people.

BROWN: This leads me to my next question. Earlier this week, CNN reported that several FEMA workers were put on leave after signing this open letter warning Congress that the Trump administration's deep cuts to the agency could lead to massive failures and disaster response. What is your reaction to that, having seen what those failures look like up close?

MESERVE: Let me say that after Katrina, there was a lot of study given to what went wrong, both the federal state and local level. Everybody looked hard, the deficiencies in planning and exercising and in executing. And changes were made. More money was given to FEMA. It was decided that an experienced emergency manager should head that agency. The states made sure that they had agreements in place so they could better cooperate with one another. A lot was done that was very positive.

Are there still deficiencies in FEMA? I'm sure. I'm not covering the agency, but I've yet to meet a government bureaucracy that operated flawlessly. But when you have about 190 current and former employees of an agency speaking up and saying, we've been gutted, this could happen again. We will again be caught flat-footed, one would hope that someone in power would listen to what they had to say rather than suspending them.

And to see that happening at the same time there's discussion about putting more responsibility on the states, about letting the states handle this on their own and perhaps even eliminating FEMA, I'm gob smacked. Here we have a federal government putting troops into American cities to handle crime, and yet, they're saying they don't necessarily want to give a federal response when there's a natural disaster. The logic of that escapes me.

BROWN: Jeanne Meserve, thank you so much. And just ahead, never- before-seen photos of Katrina's destruction. I'm going to speak to the photographer who took them. Stay with us.

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[10:40:00]

BROWN: Happening now, the Israeli military has declared Gaza's largest city a dangerous combat zone, saying it's in the, quote, "initial stages" of an attack. Videos on social media show a series of explosions in parts of Gaza City, an area the IDF has called a Hamas stronghold. Let's go to CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv. Jeremy, what's the latest?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, what we are watching on the ground in Gaza City are indeed the preparations for an Israeli military invasion of Gaza City, something of course that the Israeli cabinet decided on doing earlier this month, which has drawn significant international condemnation. We have been watching as there has been intensified artillery and aerial bombardments of key parts of Gaza City, especially in recent days, the northern part of Gaza City.

And as we know, oftentimes bombardment precedes the movement of ground troops. And indeed, ground troops are already positioned and have been operating in the City of Jabalya just north of Gaza City. We know that over the course of the last 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 59 people have been killed on the ground in these various bombardments and artillery shellings.

[10:45:00]

An Israeli military official telling me that all of this is indeed the initial stages of this Gaza City operation. Troops are also and have been operating for the last several weeks in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, in the southern part there. And so, clearly, we are watching as Israeli troops are approaching this city from several different vantage points.

At the same time, the Israeli military also operating elsewhere in Gaza and recovering the bodies of two Israeli hostages, one of whom has now been publicly identified as 56-year-old Ilan Weiss, he was killed on October 7th. His body was then taken hostage, held as a bargaining chip by Hamas until it was now returned to his family where he will finally get a proper burial. Pam.

BROWN: Very sad. Jeremy, thank you so much. Coming up right here in the Situation Room, a loophole closes and your wallet opens wider. The delays and confusion that are already affecting your online shopping, just ahead.

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[10:50:00]

BROWN: Today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and brought historic disaster to the region. Almost 1,400 people died as a result of the storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT LEWIS, HURRICANE KATRINA SURVIVOR: They were like bodies floating past my front door, you know. Bodies floating past my front door. I've never seen anything like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: More than 1 million people along the Gulf Coast were displaced and several failed levies left parts of New Orleans completely underwater.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems like somebody let a bomb go off and just -- it's just total devastation, total destruction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: 70 percent of the homes were damaged. And to this day, Katrina is the costliest disaster to ever hit the U.S. doing $108 billion in damage. Photographer Richard Misrach was on the opposite side of the country at the time and made his way to the Gulf Coast when he heard what was happening. Misrach described what he saw when he arrived as apocalyptic and began documenting the storm's aftermath. He kept most of the photos he took away from the public for the last two decades, but now, he's sharing them with us.

Richard Misrach joins us now. Richard, first of all, tell us why and why now you're releasing these pictures and what you remember from your time there.

RICHARD MISRACH, PHOTOGRAPHED HURRICANE KATRINA AFTERMATH: Yes. So -- and I went there a good month after the event happened, the water had receded. And I've been photographing in the American desert, I've been working on issues about climate change, with manmade fires and manmade floods.

And I was in a Volkswagen camper with my wife, Miriam, and we were traveling. I was doing my normal things on the West Coast, in the west on the -- in the desert. And I kept hearing the stories of Katrina and I just felt it was just like so unprecedented that I've -- we just decided to, let's drive. And we drove across country. I contacted New York Times. I said, you know, can I get in there? Can I get a press pass? What can I do? And they thought, well, the story's already over, but reported thoroughly. And we've seen some of the reporting, which is just devastating.

But I want to see what the aftermath looked like. So, they issued me a press pass. I was able to go to the Lower Ninth Ward. I drove up the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And I just -- I'd never seen anything be, you know, apocalyptic like that in my life.

And people were gone. But -- so, it was just me and the National Guard. And we just -- I just photographed, I worked for a couple weeks in my -- out of my Volkswagen camper. My father shipped me, you know, nuts and yogurt, because it was hard to get supplies and things. And I just documented. I came back, developed the film, and then turned around and went back and did that three times.

BROWN: Wow. Three times. I want to put up this one picture in particular that you brought to our attention. This one right here. Why does this one stand out to you? Tell us the story behind it.

MISRACH: So, one of the things that was just uncanny, like I've never seen before is you would see cars and boats on top of roofs. This one was one I think it was along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Can't even remember exactly where it was, but in a lower corner on the right side. And when you're doing -- viewing the screen, you'll see there's a portrait of Jesus that somebody had put out in front of their home. There's a lot of details in these photographs.

I shot with an eight by 10 view camera. I made about a thousand photographs with the old kind of camera with a large film that you put the hood over your heads. So, it was very heavy. Cumbersome. I threw my back out carrying it around. Those thousand images I basically put away for the last 20 years, I've never shown them.

Similarly, I had a small camera. A friend had recommended a new digital camera. They had not existed before. It was a four-megapixel camera, smaller than your cell phone. I took that with me and I was able to go inside buildings. I couldn't get my camera inside buildings and things so I could document what I found in the emptied buildings. It was just unbelievable.

But the small camera, I photographed -- I did a book actually in 2010 on the five-year anniversary after Spike Lee did a film about it, I decided, you know what, I put these away for 20 years. And I've done that with a couple of projects. I photographed the Oakland Fire in 1991. I put it away for 20 years.

[10:55:00]

And 2011, I showed the work for the first time. I did a book of the work. I decided to do that with Katrina. Most of the work -- I did one book on the five-year anniversary of just people's statements on their rooftops, on their walls, of their homes. It's all their words. That's all I publish and the rest I put away till now. Because I just think -- I do want to be part of that moment, kind of all the spectacle of the disaster that's so powerful at those moments. I thought this is something I wanted to create for the record books, something for history.

I found in my work over the years that work changes meaning over time. So, I thought, you know what, I'll just put it away. Let's see if it's still important or relevant. And of course, it is so -- more relevant than ever.

BROWN: It absolutely is. I love that work changes meaning over time and so very relevant 20 years later. We really appreciate you sharing it with us on the show, Richard. Thank you.

MISRACH: Thank you.

BROWN: And all morning long, we're going to speak to people who lived through Hurricane Katrina. Later, we'll be joined by a chef who was just 16 years old when his life changed forever. How he carries New Orleans with him everywhere he goes. We're back in a minute.

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