just train 20 psychiatric technicians to do a quick psychiatric evaluation. host: so, down to mental health in your view? the peopleolutely, who do crazy things with guns are crazy people. upyou initially can pick it in a quick evaluation that is cheap, that's a good way to go about it. host: what was the process like for you when you bought a gun? caller: i passed the regular test, the safety test. another paperad to have a quick psychiatric test. owner inert is a gun chicopee, massachusetts, what is your solution? for the guy in missouri, that's the only state i know

where you don't have to have a background check for purchasing a weapon at a gun show. in massachusetts, all of new england, you've got to have background checks. in connecticut, you've got to be practically licensed to buy ammunition. psychiatric evaluations is a simple solution to make your medical records public information. then you can go and the people who do the background checks -- i had to go through this with the police department here. they look at your records and they see whether you have had any instances where you would be suspect to owning a gun. governmentw why the has not done this a long time

ago. i think the nra has promoted this, that they wanted to have people's records made public so they can easily check and evaluate -- the old instant background check. that's about it. very simple solution. bernie sanders was saddened by the on air shooting. as a self-described socialist, bernie sanders has not been a gun control advocate necessarily given his state of vermont. there is a mixed bag with his record on those issues. gary is in roulette, pennsylvania. caller: good morning.

the few people who have called suggested that possibly parents should look out for their children better, maybe teach them some morals, things like that -- that is the only thing that can help anything. kids growing up have to learn the difference between life and death. when somebody bleeds out, it would not be fun. they've got to understand that. the people that want to take my guns away from me, they are not interested in death. they just want control of my guns. it's plain and simple. if they were worried about death , they would be marching in front of planned parenthood. more babies are butchered every than all the shooting in the whole world.

the democrats are missing a big opportunity. they say there is a hurricane coming towards florida and they could pass a law against hurricanes. that would take care of that problem. there is not much you can do. host: as a gun owner, do you feel the check system you have to go through to buy a gun is sufficient? caller: well, there are people who are not going to abuse their constitutional right. the people that are not going to myself -- iuch as have never killed anybody -- i don't think i should have to do any more background checks and what i've already had to do. the people that are going to mattert, it would not

how many background checks. it would not matter if guns were illegal. they would still find a way to kill somebody. senator marco rubio said after what happened in virginia that it's not the guns, it's the people committing these crimes. huey, from virginia, what's your view? caller: good morning. there has been a lot of good points brought up on your show. i don't think there is anyone solution. i wanted to mention what's going on in virginia. ownerof all, i am a gun and i have a concealed weapons permit. i do a lot of hunting, small game hunting. i have enjoyed it all my life, i'm 55 and i started when i was eight or nine. my one and only big

hobby. in virginia, i don't know about the other states, when i go to a 'sn dealer, i have to have id to show who i am and a background check which is fine. i have no problem with the laws. we need them in everything we do. the regulations are fine. neighbor or to my to the flea market on the corner or go to my nearest gun show that pops up. gun i wantny kind of with no regulations, i can get it. me, that that is the craziest thing i've heard in my life. host: why is that crazy? ifler: it's crazy because myself or anyone can go and buy

whatever gun they want at these places i mentioned and when i want to buy a brand-new gun from eight dealer, i have to have 3 id's and the background check which is fine. it's contradicting itself to me. it does not make sense. i am all for guns and hunting. that's what i love. the rules and regulations are contradicting themselves. -- so thehe coa so-called gun hole -- gun show loophole, would you like to see it close? caller: it does not make any sense. it's not just the gun shows. we have a lot of flea markets. i have seen them and yard sales. you can buy a gun anywhere you want. it's defeating the purpose. it does not make any sense. i still don't understand this. what do you think? does it make sense to you?

host: it's more important to hear what our callers think. melba, idaho, what do you think about this conversation? caller: host: turn down the volume on your television and listen through the telephone and go ahead and talk and we are listening. caller: ok, i'm from idaho and i grew up having guns all my life. i am retired military. they should come out with a program, the gun makers, that the only way you can get a gun is if you buy it [indiscernible] do you understand? host: so he fingerprints check? caller: yes, like when the gun makers make it and when the

dealers sell it, you can grab it because it not fire will be matched to your fingerprints. you can only use it with your fingerprints. if anybody stole it, they cannot fire it. host: that's ray in idaho. this is trevor in cincinnati. caller: good morning. mantra goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. democrats who say otherwise are only interested in control. i would like to expand on that and say that every private citizen deserves a nuclear weapon. host: that's trevor, probably a little did tongue-in-cheek. we are talking to gun owners only this morning. solutions to prevent gun violence -- randy in wisconsin,

what kind of gun the you have? caller: i've got a 22 for hunting and i also taught my first 12 gauge shotgun when i was 14 years old. host: ok. do you believe in the second amendment and do you think there is too much gun violence on the streets? if so, what would you do to prevent it? caller: for sure i believe in the second amendment. too much gun violence? sure there is too much. to maybean easy way put a stop to some of this. stop and frisk. if you are driving around new york city at night and you get stopped, and you get caught with a gun, you're going to jail. you're not going hunting. that would stop a lot of violence. i think the mayor out there and

a lot of cities should have that. how about this one? this guy that did this horrible , hedown in west virginia wanted to do that to be known and be famous just like the school shootings and all this other stuff. the news media jumps on it and ,urns that person into a martyr a celebrity or whatever. there should be a law that whenever there is a shooting like that, there should not tb e one thing put on the news. rightpeople who are not they willo be famous, know that they will my be famous doing that so they will not do it. the news media is just as much to blame for propping up these people as they are for doing it. that is a law that this country

needs and a strict one. host: that is randy in wisconsin and this is mansa in capital heights, maryland. of the on the border district of columbia and maryland has a lot of strict gun laws. what was the process like for you to get a gun? caller: i don't think freemen should need permission to bear arms. i think the government is the cause of this problem. the u.s. government as a number one arms dealer in the world. is the u.s. governmenti is arming terrorist groups likes. it's really the secret intelligence service. they sell guns to the mexican cartels. though my have these draconian laws like the patriot act. the president signed executive orders. without aan citizen trial or jury -- i don't have a weapon for hunting, i have it for self-defense. rightstry to violate my

or break into my house, i will defend myself. host: what was the process like to get that weapon in capitol heights, maryland? free man should not go through a process. host: is your gun owned legally? caller: legally? what is legal about the president -- what does the president need an executive order giving him the authority to kill any american citizen without a trial or jury? what's legal about that? that's the law. is nick inxt alexandria, virginia, another suburban call. caller: how are you doing? host: we are listening. caller: i am a real gun owner. i know about the laws.

i do a lot of lobbying at the statehouse for the second amendment. i heard someone talk about biometrics which his fingerprints on a gun. that sounds great and it's expensive and would prohibit many people from purchasing firearms and if your hand is dirty or has blood on it, the gun will not function. i heard someone say that we need a law that says the news does not cover these gun tragedies. the problem with that is that's against the first amendment. we have the freedom of the press. that's censorship. someone else said we need to have psychiatrists when you buy a gun. who will pay for that or make that determination? weeone called in and said need to violatehipaa and allow medical records to be made public. baby, they area diagnosed with postpartum depression, are they allowed to own a gun? who makes the determination? a code for low

information voters. it has nothing to do with the gun show, it's private sales. knowing can own fully automatic firearms unless you go through a class three. ak-47, he isth an talking about a semi automatic civilian version. which is legally defined as one shot per pool of chigger. anything more, you must go through years of intensive paperwork, training, to the federal government. i am sure you're wondering how many guns i have. probably more than all of your callers combined because i am from virginia. because i cannot this -- but i cannot disclose that because it is private information. any questions? host: you say you lobbied in richmond on these issues. are you with an organization?

caller: i am. but i also just go there as myself. but i am well-known by organizations. i prefer not to mention the. host: there are a couple in richmond, including the national rifle association and gun owners of america. would one of those be yours? caller: i prefer not to name names. i just heard it bunch of people calling in. bunch of discounted a callers -- we are talking to gun owners only to bring a different perspective. youris a solution, in view, to reduce gun violence? aller: there needs to be solution. first of all, we do not have a gun violence problem. we have a violence problem. we have guns all over the world and there are plenty of great solutions. , we are going to have

to have a lot of people, security and police, with guns around america. every school, shopping mall. it may not happen in our time. guess who has that right to israel. when you're under a constant threat of being shot at, they hand out concealed weapon permits like crazy. police andws having security. it will come to that. our time.r but it will come to that. other solutions -- i have a few degrees in criminal justice. there are factors that contribute to violence, truancy, recidivism, poverty, education. we all know it. it sucks. just like casinos foster crimes, drugs foster crime. what is there a quick solution -- i will tell you what it is not. background checks.

let me make this clear. the federal law requires everyone go through a background check when you purchase a gun through a dealer. everyone has to go through a background check. i heard someone say we should not let the mentally ill have a gun. you are not allowed to have a gun if you are mentally ill. this is miss information. we have a good system when it purchasing and transferring guns. in virginia, we do have private sales. it is a dirty word. everyone says what does that mean? what that means is, i have whattely sold guns, happens is if you know somebody and you say i know you, let me see your id and your concealed carry permit. i will take your information. and if you want to buy this gun, it is yours. that is how we do it in virginia. some people call it over the fence. you do not do it to someone who

is shady or out of another state. you do not do it that way. a solution -- there is no magical solution. there is a point where our society is so bad, there is no coming back from the brink. i can tell you the solutions that do not work. that is a lot easier, unfortunately. a realry gun locks -- gun owner locks up their gun. what will that do? any other questions from someone who knows what they are talking about? host: we appreciate your time this morning. the last caller, mark in new mexico. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span. he took my thunder. he mentioned israel. is these -- it is the perfect time. when kids graduate high school, they go into mandatory two years in the military. they get educated on weapons and stuff. this would drastically cut down on violence in the u.s. after

they got out. knowthing else, they would -- they would he educated on weapons. -- it would not stop the violence, because people will do what anyway. but with more people knowledgeable about it, it would help control it. host: mark in carlsbad, new mexico. for the next two hours on the "washington journal," we turn our attention to the 10th anniversary of the katrina hurricane, which the landfall anniversary is tomorrow. we have three guests coming up. we will be joined by karen durham-aguilera of the u.s. army corps of engineers. we will talk about the levee system and how that is going in the rebuild of that. after that, marc morial, head of the urban league and former mayor of new orleans.

he will join us to give his perspective. then we talked to the editor of in newspaper down orleans as well. that is what is coming up. first, we want to show you a little of the president, yesterday, in his talk in new orleans. [video clip] >> laid bare a deeper tragedy. that had been brewing for decades. because we came to understand that new orleans, like so many cities and communities across the country, had been too long plagued by structural inequality. that left too many people, especially poor people, especially people of color, without good jobs, affordable health care, housing. kids grew up cycling through a life of crime without the chance to break out of poverty. --e a audie weekend already, body weakened already,

undernourished already, when the storm hit, there was no resources to fall back on. shortly after i visited -- shortly after the storm, i visited with folks not here, because we could not distract local recovery efforts. instead, i visited folks in shelter in houston, many of whom who had in displaced. one woman told me we had nothing before the hurricane, and now we have less than nothing. before theing hurricane, now we have less than nothing. thisknowledge this loss in pain. not to dwell on the past. wallow in grief.

we do it to fortify our commitment. and to bolster our hope. to understand what it is that we have learned and how far we have come. because this is a city that slowly, unmistakably, together, is moving forward. process of rebuilding here was not just to restore the city as it had in, but to restore the city acted should be. a city that no matter what they look like, how much money they have, where they come from, where they are born, has the chance to make it. [applause] and i am here to say that, on betterrger project, of a , stronger, more just new orleans, the progress you have made is remarkable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: a few weeks after katrina

hit new orleans, president bush spoke in jackson square in new orleans to talk about rebuilding. [video clip] area has aorleans particular challenge. because much of the city lies below sea level. the people who call it home need to have reassurance their lives will be safer in the years to calm. -- to come. protecting a city that sits lower than the water around is not easy but it can and has been done. city and terrorist officials in new orleans and state officials in louisiana will have a large part in the engineering decisions to come. the army corps of engineers will work out their side to make these flood protection system stronger than it has ever been. he worked that has begun in the gulf coast region will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen. done, all americans

will have something to be very proud of. host: care and durham-aguilera is with the u.s. -- karen durham-aguilera is with the army corps of engineers. has the levee system been rebuilt as president bush called for in 2005? guest: good morning. he has been a great week to be here in new orleans, 10 years after katrina brought such havoc and devastation to people that live here and a big wake-up call to the nation. yes, the levee system -- we really call it the hurricane storm risk of damage system, around metro new orleans has been ill stronger and better than we could have ever imagined. incredible it an system for the people of new orleans, but it is also great for the nation. it shows what we can do. all week long, i have been

hearing people talk about it being a world-class system. host: how much has been spent on this system? guest: we were fortunate to have twocommitment of administrations and the u.s. congress to provide for nearly $14.5 billion program. about 11 billion dollars of that has been for the hurricane system around new orleans alone. there were other parts of that program to make further improvements, such as interior drainage in the area. temporary pumps and closure structures we installed in 2006 around the canals. and the permanent replacement of those are going on now. there are other things done. storm proofing they numerous pumping stations owned by the local parishes. strengthening other components to provide for environmental mitigation. overall, an incredible piece of work. phonewe will put the

numbers up. we want to hear from new orleans residents, especially those who want to comment about the levee the work the u.s. army corps of engineers has done. if you are a new orleans residents, call (202) 748-8000. country,s around the including those on the gulf coast, because we want to hear from you as well, (202) 748-8001 is the number for you. durham-aguilera, has the levee system rebuild been finished? guest: the hundred year system of a storm 1% chance happening each and every year, that system is complete to it was complete in september of 2011. you may remember hurricane isaac hit in august, 2012. dayn years almost to the katrina hit. we were pleased to see that the designed.formed as

people in metro new orleans, everyone stayed dry. the people outside the system, with different levee systems partly in place, did experience flooding, as well as considerable flooding on the north shore. the hurricane system we built for that hundred year storm is in place, finished, and doing what it is supposed to. hit, did thetrina levees break or were they overrun? guest: several things happened when katrina hit. first, the existing system, which is totally different from what we were able to design and construct after katrina, averaged about 50% finished on the east bank, the lake potter inain -- lake ponchatra vicinity, was finished. the in the area around new orleans, it was about 32 feet --

it was about 15 feet. it was 32 feet on the coast. the other thing responsible for the flooding were there were four floodwalls on the canals that failed. waves topping the the floodwalls and causing upward pressure on the walls, causing them to fail. orleansom nola.com, new area is upgraded levees not enough for next katrina, engineers say. here is a quote from retired vantenant general robert and fall. the new levee system, though it would not be destroyed by another katrina, would most certainly be overtopped and there will still be a lot of people that will be inundated. guest: we call him general van. when he was the chief engineer,

at that time, we were still designing and building the system. -- thing we were able to do and it was a true lessons learned from all the engineering analyses that he examined after katrina. part of katrina we designed for was the standard probable flood. what type of large flood or hurricane happened in the past? katrina taught us that was not good enough. katrina, the size and surge of it, no one imagined. we took 152 past and potential tracks -- in50 other words, different paths a hurricane could travel, and apply that over the physical features on the ground and forrated 63,000 hydrographs any storm from a five year to 100 year rate of return. we added risk and uncertainty on

top of that. we also projected out 50 years for both subsiding and sea level rising climate change. that is what we designed and built two. that means the system is resilient. first, the amount of surge expected from the 100 year storm, 1% event, is much lower than the system in place. that is 25 to 32 feet tall now. hit, in august of 2005, a lot of those floodwalls were only 12 feet high. now some of those areas are over 30 feet. katrina is said to be a 100 year storm. so if you have a storm the size of the train or bigger, heart of this system could he overtopped -- could be overtopped. you could get interior flooding. basically what we have done is put in a perimeter to lock the search that comes in, minimize

it, and then there is an interior drainage system that removes the water. host: final question before we go to calls. from the "new york times" yesterday, they described the levee system in place in 2005 as a "fatally defective system to begin with." is that accurate? describe it lots of different ways. the system in place was not a system. it was a series of projects. everything was as weak as the weakest components. thesurveying data we based previous system on was designed years earlier. the datum turned out to be inaccurate. another thing responsible for what happened with katrina is that the foundations of those floodwalls were shallow and they were not able to hold up under

the waves that came overtopped and ended up up lifting them. based on what we knew at the time, the system did not perform. it is fortunate we were able to spend time after that to do hydraulic modeling and all the design changes to make sure at we truly built a hurricane system that would reduce risk for the people in new orleans. 202 is the area code for our numbers. we want to specify we have a number for new orleans area -- new orleans residents only. (202) 748-8000 is that number. we begin with peter in pennsylvania. you are on with karen durham-aguilera of the u.s. army corps of engineers. caller: hi. i am calling in favor of the army corps. i inc. it is a regional problem, as opposed to a -- i think it is

a regional problem, as opposed to a national problem. torything the court did control flooding in pennsylvania was relevant. i think it is a systemic problem, where maybe the core is corps ismore on -- the focusing more on certain areas and eliminating others as a priority. that is it. host: ms. durham-aguilera? for yourank you for interest and calling in. every country we deal with, and the u.s. is no exception, unfortunately waits for a catastrophe to happen before they take action. katrina was a wake-up up call. it was bigger than just new orleans and louisiana. it truly made us rethink the vulnerability of numerous areas of the country, whether coastal

-- in this country we are subject to hurricanes, tornadoes, river flooding, wildfires -- it truly made as re-examine everything we were doing. if we look at different events country, hurricane sandy. when it hit in october of 2012, area ofwrought in that searches that people were not fast it also brought -- it also brought in those areas a search that people were not aware -- were not ready for. everyone was working together to first respond to sandy. but especially in the wake the recovery happened. everything we are doing on the north atlantic seaboard, from adding the further protection in engineered dunes along the shorelines but also the recovery strategy that we were able to publish this year, called the north atlantic coastal

comprehensive, put together a risk framework for the atlantic seaboard but that people can use across the country to make decisions on floodplain management. the trina taught us a lot. we have been applying those lessons not just around the country, but we do a lot of technical exchanges with other countries. we are sharing the lessons learned with other countries. the focus has expanded the way we think about risk reduction and resiliency. elo from new orleans. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i am 68. and stayedfor betsy for katrina. as far as london avenue canal, which broke -- i used to catch turtles when i was a kid there.

corps of engineers it seems like -- every project they get into, they tried to cheap it out, cut corners. the corners they cut caused me to lose a corvette, a chevy tahoe. katrina was not a bad storm. until the corps of engineers made disaster a man , that the corps of engineers and the portland's gas industry industry,eans gas with all the canals dug out of the wetlands. on thesed to be islands outskirts that would slow down out of some of the brunt

the storm. the islands are not there anymore. they are gone. the wetlands need to be restored. levees, rtant than the wetlands, restore the please. host: thank you. then durham-aguilera of army corps of engineers. host: thank you for calling in and for living here and doing everything you are doing for the community. asked a lot of different questions. essentialof faerie topics we worry about. after katrina, our chief of engineers was lieutenant general stock. tookmediately

responsibility for what the u.s. army corps of engineers aid. the way we had a series of projects that were not held -- were not built the way they should. he commissioned a study called ped, api review of over 150 people from different federal,'s date agencies, academia, different countries, to examine what happened with the existing work and what we need to do to come up with a system that is stronger and better and able to truly reduce -- truly reduce the risk of flooding for the people of new orleans. that is the system we built. but there are so many other factors that have been going on for decades. one of the most significant is subsidence. there were 1900 square miles of marshland that has been lost in the entire state of louisiana.

that subsidence factor is one we worry about. it is far more significant than sea level rise. the other thing across louisiana that has been happening is the loss of the wetlands. the loss of environmental features that can help slow down the energy that hurricane surge can bring in and are so vital to the cultural and economic and lifeblood of louisiana. there are numerous efforts that have been ongoing. the state of louisiana has a master plan. working with them on louisiana coastal activities. a lot of projects plan that can be part of the restore act that came in under the bp oil spill. there are lots of different efforts and plans. some are ongoing. there is so much more work to do to make a difference. host: how do you rebuild a barrier island and what is the effect of having one? guest: some people say you

rebuild a barrier island through moving sediment. some say you can do it by moving material in. one of the things we know -- and going back to hurricane sandy, i was along the shorelines of new jersey and new york a couple days at their sandy and i felt like i was back in louisiana. in every area where people had an elevated home and they had an anchored foundation and there was room between their property and the coastline, they suffered the least amount of damage. with that told us is, in those areas where we had what we -- so wegineered dunes had shoreline protection in place to help block the effects of the waves, we know that type of thing does make a difference. it does mitigate the damage can do.rge barrier islands are other environmental features, combined

with the structural things we have done, combined with surge barriers and with elevated homes and zoning and people having flood insurance and listening to evacuation orders, all of that helps mitigate risk and reduce the risk of flooding. it really takes a motley line of defense, where you put all of these together to get to the best solution on how you can reduce the damage hurricane surge flooding can cause. lph, you are on with the u.s. army corps of engineers. from washington, d.c. caller: i am glad you are doing these projects, bill your initial projects destroy the wetlands. there are new estimates. assumes we have taken carbon out of the atmosphere.

you are talking about sea level rise by 2050. these are heroic efforts and yay, we are bringing louisiana back, but i am wondering if your projects work with sea level rises. but what you do about manhattan and new york and boston and the southern part of florida. you will build dikes around that . we are chasing our tail on the initial thing. unless we change the way we are why don't we we -- move these people inland 15 or 20 miles? in 20 years, we will not have coastal cities anymore. situation.o joke the ipc see is assuming some dracula's thing with the lowest common denominator every century, which every scientist it is as salt says ridiculous number and assumes we have some dracula's way of

carbon out of the atmosphere. you have to look at the big city. picture. the big we will lose the coastal cities. resourcest have the to do what is necessary. guest: thank you. on a lot of topics in a lot of different areas. i will try to answer as best i can. first, there are lots of different models that show different rates -- i will talk about subsidence in louisiana -- but also different rates of sea level rise. local and relative sea level rise. they all give you different numbers. central point is that people make a choice where they want to live. people like to live around water. that comes with risk.

there are different things you can do to mitigate that risk. when you choose to live in these places. i do not think it is a practical matter. i lay back to the politicians to tell people where they live. people need to decide where they want to live and be smart on the risk of doing so. one of the things we have done -- i do not just mean the u.s. army corps of engineers. i mean the things we are doing ,th noaa, fema, universities other countries. we are looking at how do you tackle sea level rise. we have a calculator starting on the atlantic seaboard that applies to manhattan and other areas. looked at scenarios in 50 and 100 years on different changing conditions. fema put maps together. we are putting that together so we can work with floodplain managers and city manager is to

make decisions that affect people in communities and try to plan the community around what can happen. the biggest thing is to anticipate what could happen and make smart decisions on what people can do to absorb that. balance that. to the story is still being told. there is no lack or white answer on what to do with changing climate. but we are doing a lot of engineering analyses and working with colleagues and other scientists to project what future conditions could be. people need to be able to decide where they want to live and accept the risk that goes with it. mike is calling from baltimore but originally from new orleans. when did you leave? guest: -- caller: my name is john connor.

the president said, is a melting pot. i agree with that. but america has to understand it is a melting pot of richness. all different flavors. that should not be watered down or replaced with a starbucks. because we are all americans. in that melting pot of richness, we make the flavor for each other. clinton in new orleans. you are on the air. aguilera, thank you for your candor. the levees on the 17th street canal, the west levy is higher than the east levee. the water pours over the east side of the levee. is the situation going to be remedied? the: d live in the lake

area of newer -- do you live in the lakeview area of new orleans? caller: yes. host: where you flooded in 2005? caller: yes. guest: earlier, heard peter talking about -- and president bush -- talking about new orleans being below sea level. what we know is that the topography around new orleans varies widely between the mississippi river and lake ponchatrain. around our folks lived the london canal. when the reach is occurred, he was not flooded and his neighbors were. the reason that happens is the natural ground that there is at different heights and elevations. that makes the engineering design the how we levees hard and it makes it

harder to try to halt people understand what the risk could be when they see different heights of the levees and floodwalls. so based on the typography and you end up,deling, in some places, with different heights of levees and floodwalls, because it is based on what we expect to happen when the surge comes in. we are working on other parts of the system. the 100 year system is completed. but other components are being done as well. one of the things no one has mentioned yet that causes us to that, if you happen to have high river levels in the mississippi river, which could happen when you have a have ane, in -- hurricane come in, what would happen if we surge overwhelms the mississippi river levees? that is something we have done

to improve those levees, especially when they tie into the new hurricane system. so you may see different heights, but it is based on the model and we have done with the uncertainty and resiliency and with the fifth the year life taken into account -- the 50 year life taken into account. host: did the mississippi river over run its banks during katrina? did not. but when we look over the past years when we were designing a hurricane system, we realized it could be possible. that you could have high enough river levels and you could get surge that will come up the river. improvedhat we have the mississippi river levees as well. up until a few weeks ago, the river level was high. it has dropped several feet, but still higher than normal. it rocked five feet in the last few weeks.

an occasionuld be where you have high river levels at the same time during hurricane season. host: 202 is area code. 748-8000 if you live in your lens and you have a specific question for the army corps of engineers. former be joined by the mayor marc morial layer, -- by the former mayor marc morial later. pat, good morning. turn down the volume on your tv. i just turned it off. i am calling more about the city of new orleans and the people of new orleans. i started going there 32 years ago when i go to the golf course in james, louisiana for the weekends. married in wisconsin in 1983.

we have been to new orleans at then.15 times since we have been there six times since katrina, most recently last september. each time we come back, we find the town is much better, cleaner. i feel much safer there. i think the police force is more friendly. mainly to the people of new orleans, the people that own the businesses, are much friendlier. even the prices have been lowered, i think. i feel much safer now with the way they have built the levee in case they would unfortunately be caught in a hurricane. overall, i think of the town has improved so much, as far as being cleaned up. the restaurants have been added. we still go to the same ones. friendlier then

before katrina. i think the town has improved 100% as far as safety. people being friendly. i can't believe president bush actually wanted to close the town down. he could see the difference if yet ever been there before and now. i feel much safer the way that -- host: i think we got your point. anything you want to add? for your loveou of new orleans. i have spent many years of my life here. now,e in washington, d.c. what that pool and love to new orleans continues. this town has a spirit. after katrina, a lot of people came in to help. entrepreneurs, love people. tulane university made it mandatory to have a year of community service for the students. so many people have come here to

add to new orleans, help it recover, and also to make it better. hasmayor, mitch landrieu, his resiliency strategy he launched a few days ago. ,verything the city is doing with partners, nonprofits, volunteers, a lot of the new people and the entrepreneurs in, as well as the incredible people that have lived here for many years and are from here, that has made new orleans a resilient place. continued improvement in education, business is. lots of examples. it is wonderful to see how the continuestinues and to improve and get better. i appreciate your passion and think you for coming back here time and time again. homa, louisiana,

close to new orleans. caller: i was wondering, i know over -- once or twice over the , the army corps of engineers breached levees to relieve pressure, i guess. every time it has been done, it blue-collarour neighborhoods, low income neighborhoods, are destroyed. i am baffled by how -- white -- -- how higher income would you say it -- rich arele's neighborhoods always protected and looked out for to try to divert water from flooding those places? how do you come up with the way you will breach and where you will breach the levees? several things.

thank you for calling in. i will talk about the area of new orleans in new orleans east first. new orleans east, st. bernard, that area was one of the most economically disadvantaged in the area prior to katrina. it was one of the most vulnerable areas, as far as risk rum surge flooding -- as far as risk from surge flooding from a storm that would go into lake pontchartrain. in those areas where the outfall canals, where prior to katrina, we had floodwalls but no closure to help block the surge. the system we have put in, one of the linchpins of the system, is a over $1 billion surge barrier with closure structures surrounded by floodwalls. these are some of the highest ones in the area, over 32 feet. on the west bank is the west

bank closure structure, also a surge barrier. it has a copying station. those things together, with the interior features, reduce the risk for new orleans. one of the things you mentioned -- i will talk about hurricane isaac. the 100urricane isaac, year system around new orleans performed as designed. areas,look at other those areas were flooded by the search isaac brought in. there is no improved levee system there -- the levee systems that work the state tried to make better. those areas where the water was building up and there was danger of people losing their life, the pairs and the state decided to use a common engineering technique to try to relieve , when you have water

against the levees. you called it a breach. it relieves the pressure on the water, which mitigates flooding. it is something people do in extreme flood situations. mother nature does not care how much money people have and where they live. inher nature will ring storms and water anywhere she chooses to go. durham-aguilera, this final tweet for you. eithernt to know what actuation plans does louisiana/new orleans have in place citizens now? are there designated safe places? guest: imb disaster emergency manager for the army corps of engineer's. speaking of evacuation plans, after katrina -- this was in --thewhen gustav hit

state of louisiana has a considerable evacuation plan which includes contraflow, shelter, arrangements with other states. to include the things they can industries so you can get things open quickly, whether it is pharmacies or gasps patients -- gas stations. but there are those things in place. the director with of the program. i was impressed how comprehensive the plan is. but the army corps of engineers, along with fema, we run a hurricane evacuation plan. cities do studies for and counties along coastal areas to look at evacuation plans and help them get better. you can get this information online.

they describe the evacuation plans and scenarios of what people can do. everyone who lives in an area like this needs to know what to do and have their personal family prepared nation -- preparedness kit. had two kits.e, i a personal one and my federal one because i was part of the federal response team. karen durham-aguilera, u.s. army corps of engineers. we appreciate you coming on "washington journal" and talking with our viewers. our look at the 10th anniversary of katrina continues. up next, former mayor marc morial, now president of the national urban league, which has done a new study on new orleans. he will join us from new orleans in a minute. ♪

>> this weekend on the c-span politics, books, and american history. , hurricanerday katrina's 10th anniversary. with live coverage from new orleans. speakers include bill clinton and norlin's mayor mitch landrieu. on our road to the white house coverage, speeches from hillary clinton and bernie sanders at democratic national committee summer meeting in minneapolis. on booktv on saturday at 10:00 eastern on "afterwards," author peralta talks about his book "undocumented," tracing his steps as an undocumented immigrant. sunday, several stories about hurricane katrina and its

aftermath. history tv on c-span three, saturday afternoon, a few minutes past 2:00 p.m., former astronaut discusses the history of space stations, comparing the development of the space program between the u.s. and russia. tokyo, a 1945t in army signal corps film documenting the course of world war ii in the pacific theater up to be surrendered ceremony on september 2, 1945. get our complete schedule at c-span.org. once said sheng only had one hobby. that was warren harding. significant force in his presidency and adept at handling the media. infidelities,ips,

his death in office, and her own poor health, she would help the the first ladies position. -- sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american on c-span 3. this sunday night on "q&a," brookings institution senior vanda felbab-brown. >> the u.s. did achieve improvement and security, but the war depends on how it ends. i increasingly questioned myself. we do not know how it will end. it is possible that five years

down the road, we will be back in a new civil war in afghanistan. isis has slowly emerged in the country. there is the prospect that it is worse than the taliban. the taliban is hardly defeated. if we end up in new civil war in new safe havens for the taliban and isis, i would say it was not worth the price. felbab-brown sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." "washington journal" continues. host: our look at the 10th anniversary of katrina continues. we could the phone numbers up first because we want to hear from you. area code. 748-8004 new orleans residents. we want to hear your -- 748-8000 residents.eans

we want to hear from you. others across the country, (202) for you is the number to call. here is the front page of this -picayune."times we will talk to the editor of the newspaper earlier. here is the president. "your lens -- orleans 'just irrepressible'" he says. that is the front page of the "times-picayune." below that is a story we will ask. "hispanic people put down permanent roots." when you put out the growth of the hispanic population since katrina, you have seen where it has grown in the parishes or

counties surrounding new orleans. -- as gone up 6000 paid big up 6000. big increase in jefferson. the hispanic population since the rebuilding, since katrina. puts president bush's response with president obama. brazile praises president bush's response to hurricane katrina thursday, hours before president obama's speech in new orleans. she praised bush for pouring more than $120 billion into rebuilding new orleans and other golf communities over the opposition of some republicans. "the president made a commitment and i think he kept his word," said brazile. walter isaacson, who served with

brazile echoed her comments. "george w. bush, i think, gets a bum rap," he told the traveling press corps. "it took a wild to get things started, it was a little bit slow. but he cared about the city deeply and so did laura bush." andact, president bush laura bush will visit some of the schools on the gulf coast later. joining us now is former mayor of new orleans and national urban league president, marc morial. morial, good morning. you are coded in the "washington post" are studying, with regard to new orleans and the rebuilding, we are at halftime. what do you mean? nott: i mean the city has been fully populated. all neighborhoods have not fully

combat. they are still pending reimbursement claims the city has with fema. rebuilding, the renaissance, the research into the city still has a distance to go. applaude urban league progress that has been made. but we also pointed out -- we have a report released by the urban league of greater new orleans this week -- about the continuing challenges of poverty, jobs, income, and education that still plague the city and confront the region. 10understanding where we are years later, it is important that people not spike the ball. not pop the cork on the champagne bottle. but applaud the work that has been done but commit to the continuation. it took san francisco 25 years to come back after the devastating earthquake in the

early part of the 1900s. this rebuilding of new orleans will still take another 10 to 15 complete.e full and host: we are some of the successes and not so successful areas? guest: the success has been that lots of public interest structures have been built. there is a new levee system. that system is considerably better than the levee system of 10 years ago. .ith new engineering those being flood and storm gates. publicy, 38 a.m. you schools. because the old schools were destroyed. thirdly, through a combination of private insurance, their own savings, have built their homes, rebuilt their businesses.

parts ofible in many the city. i really think the real should be the perseverance, the commitment of people because of the culture and history of new orleans, has been a driver of all we have seen up until this point. host: 202 is the area code. 748-8000 if you live in new orleans and want to talk to former mayor marc morial about the current conditions of the city. did you face any large hurricanes when you were mayor and what was your reaction? guest: i faced several hurricanes, perhaps the most serious of them was hurricane georges in 1998. it required us to call for a voluntary evacuation of the city

and required us to use of the dome and the convention center at shelters of last result. hurricane georges could have been katrina. diverted, as many hurricanes due at the end, and hit the gulf coast of mississippi. was the moste serious threat on the city in quite a bit of time. new orleans also had flooding incidents, occasioned by heavy rainfall. or two memorable flooding incidents as a result of rainfall. nothing of the scale of katrina. it is important to emphasize and re-emphasize that the failed flood walls on what are called out while drainage canals, and the failed flood while on the industrial canal, where large contributing factors to be flooding that took place after

hurricane katrina passed by the city. we faced that. it was a challenge. i made it my business, during the years i was mayor from 1994 to 2002, to be briefed extensively on hurricane preparedness. each and every may. i wanted to make sure the city was fully prepared. there was nothing of the scale of katrina. i would emphasize, that in a , federal, state, and local cooperation is essential. ofis not that one branch government or the other is fully responsible. the response required requires a if there isffort going to be an evacuation. certainly if there will be the kind of humanitarian response needed from people who may be stuck. is that lesson learned

there has to be a transportation plan to help of those who may not have automobiles, those who may not have private transportation, to evacuate when there is a threat. host: the black population in new orleans decreased. 118,000 since katrina. what is the significance of that? guest: it is important to recognize that the city still remains this cultural gumbo. this mix of people. proximally 60% of the population remains african-american, with the remainder eating white. givenamerican, primarily enemies. and latino. primarily vietnamese. and latino. but for those who are renters who did not own their own homes, it was difficult coming back. to this day, many are not

restored. secondly, much of the black middle class was displaced. there was a layoff of some 700-5000 teachers. in areas of the city like pontchartrain park in new orleans east, they got a very slow start, primarily because , are was an effort by some plan by some, that those neighborhoods should not be rebuilt. up in thelaying catch rebuilding process. it has been difficult. now you have a large new orleans in places like baton rouge, houston, atlanta. some of the river parishes between new orleans and baton rouge. many of the people who evacuated remain in the region to such an extent that now baton rouge is the largest city in terms of population in the state of louisiana.

host: property taxes have doubled in new orleans since katrina. flood insurance rates have tripled. water bills, will more than double by 2020. and home prices in some historically black neighborhoods have doubled as well. marc morial, our guest. larry is in bowling green, kentucky. hi, larry. caller: i want to challenge to listen to what i said. what is that -- take a crowbar and do some good down in new orleans? easy for -- avenue is a rich -- thank you, c-span. host: mr. mayor, do you have any comments for that? guest: donald trump proposed a high-rise apartment building if i recall, in new orleans right after the hurricane but it didn't get built. host: he has a hotel down there, doesn't he?

i think he's got one down in the c.b.d. guest: i'm not sure of that. but interesting. i'm going to stay away since he's a presidential candidate and stay away from commenting on presidential politics this morning. host: if you're in new orleans and you want to talk to the former mayor, call us. steven this st. louis. steven, you're on with marc morial. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i'm a retired federal employee up in st. louis here. i have watched all the town hall meetings all through the week. and i remember very vividly. i tried to go down there and to volunteer work and i didn't get selected. and i've got two very quick comments. i've been seeing and i remember this back in 2005. there was a lot of comments about the poor people couldn't

get trailers to live in phenom -- fema was slow. there were bodies all over the place, that we lost all of these people. i need some understanding. this was a catastrophic -- just looking at some of the pictures this morning, i can't even imagine what those poor people when through. i don't want to use the -- thing, but what were some of the problems back then? i know that people were utterly frustrated and i understand. my heart goes out to them. that's the first thing. the second thing is the job issue. we need to get these young people to work. i mean, i'll be quite honest with you. if i didn't have a job, no way to get a job, i might be doing something illegal. i'm going to be quite honest about that. these young people, this is our livelihood. this is our future. and i put that on the politicians. , en you get elected to office

one of your main goals to me is to be a salesman, to get people, to get companies to come into your joerger. i know that's a difficult thing. i've never been in sales. so maybe i shouldn't be saying that, but i looked at our politicians and they've got to hit that road. they've got to get these companies in there somehow so that we can get these young kids to give them some hope. and that's host: steven in st. louis, thank you. guest: i agree fully with steven with the idea that there is no more important issue in america today than trying to provide employment opportunities which lead to positive quality of life for young people. and what the country has to do is step away from the traditional political conversation which says well, is it a government responsibility?

is it a private sector responsibility? is it all about education? it is a private sector ability. in my work at the urban league, we encourage the private sector towns the great hope and possibilities of america's urban communities which have seen tremendous disinvestment over the years. but it's also a government responsibility. we can spend trillions in iraq and in afghanistan, if we can spend significant money, public dollars on foreign aid to assist other countries, if we can provide tax incentives, some of which encourage investment abroad, then we can, if you will, spend and invest in providing job opportunities for the young people of america. you've got do better with schools. yeah, we have to do that.

but some of this is also by young adults. and young adult who is do want to work, do have the capability of working, and there isn't enough opportunity for them. and i'll give everyone a number between 16 and 24. one out of every five young people in america is neither orking for -- nor in school. that's. seven million people. we the urban league have an nitiative. we've got programs in new orleans and in several communities, many, communities around the nation. and we do this work. however, we have long lines of people who want to be part of our programs and so we're fighting every day for more, if you will, investment to fund more job training slots in communities across the country.

host: next call from marc morial comes from stephanie in wilton t p.a. hi, stephanie. stephanie, we're listening to you. just listen to your telephone and turn down the volume on your. go ahead and start talking, ok? caller: ok. i'm just -- host: you know what, stephanie, i'm going to go ahead and move on. to all the callers, once you get on, turn down the volume on your. you'll be able to hear everything through your telephone and if you leave your tv up, then we get this feedback and it slows the program down a little bit. jeannie this new orleans. jeannie, you're on the air. caller: hi. yes. my husband and i returned to new orleans in march of 2006. i write a little neighborhood column which i was asked to do because i started a kind of a blog after this -- aftermath. but one of the things that really bothers me here is that the amount of insurance that

people are paying for their properties is just horrendous. and nothing has been done to control.that under this has caused so many people to lose their homes and yes, there are new people who have come in here and are building and were grateful -- we're grateful to have them but a lot of the people who were here before katrina and came back and tried to rebuild have been not only unsuccessful, but have lost their homes. people who were in their 60's and retired and, you know, their house is almost paid for and suddenly, they an enormous mortgage because of the failure of both the government and the banks for not helping people to be able to get back on their feet without causing them such distress.

so we're talking about middle class people here. host: jeannie, can you give us an idea of what the insurance cost changes have been and what neighborhood do you live in new orleans? caller: i live in lakeview. and i can tell you that our insurance just for basic, and i mean, not great insurance, but basic insurance costs over $6,000 a year now. and with property tax the way they've gone up, it's about $10,000 a year just on those two items. it's ridiculous. it just has really hurt the people who came back early on in this game. and we saw many of our friends who have lost their homes because of this. they couldn't afford to live here anymore. host: thank you, ma'am. let's hear from former mayor marc morial. guest: i'm glad jeannie has raised this issue because all of the mubs show that the cost of

living whether you're paying a mortgage or rent plus insurance, the housing costs have dramatically increased in this community. what i would say to jeannie is that insurance companies in the state of louisiana are regulated by the state commissioner of insurance. and i would encourage him to be provide to come on this show and talk specifically about increases in homeowners insurance that really is making it difficult for people who have return to the stay in the city and for many, many others to come back. this is why i've called this a continuation because the city, the region,, neighborhoods -- regions continue to face challenges. lakeview is one of those great communities of homeowners, tightly it in.

any of whom came back. and these issues need to be addressed and i've said to people, look, southeastern louisiana is always going to be at risk of a severe weather event. but so is coastal mississippi, coastal alabama, coastal florida, all the way around south carolina and north carolina, over to texas. the beauty of the coast is that it gives us beauty. it gives us abundance. it gives us fisheries. it gives us offshore oil and gas, but also the gulf of mexico in the summer time because of the warmth of the waters is really, really a feeder that strengthens hurricanes so communities are going to be at risk. this insurance issue needs to be addressed certainly by those first line who are responsible

and i think that's the state the commissioner of insurance and i think members of legislature have to raise this as a high priority issue. host: clifton is calling in from rochelle, georgia. hi, clifton. caller: good morning. the best i remember there was some $2 billion in credit card fraud that went on during the hurricane. i would like to know how much of that money has been recovered and how many people have actually been prosecuted for that fraud and i'll take the answer off the air and you guys have a good day. host: mr. mayor? guest: i don't know what the number is and i'm not the best person to answer that question. that should probably be directed to the law enforcement authorities and the district attorney and the united states attorney here to determine what in fact may have occurred with that. but i couldn't address that. host: i want to read two tweets to you, mr. mayor, and get your view on this. this is the first one.

52% of black males in new orleans are unemployed, yet obama fights to give five million illegal aliens work perments. and what impact of the influx have on the vacant of low cost housings for those who would ike to return? guest: the people who request work permits for undocumented workers are businesses. restaurants, sometimes, hotels, meat processing plants, if you will, large farming concerns.

and the law gives these businesses under the current law the right to ask for work permits. secondly, and i have to say this, many of the immigration reform bills would involve a tightening of the eligibility for work permits and i know at the national urban league, we fought for a system where less work permits are available for businesses when unemployment is high in the united states. and i think it's important to recognize that the main proponent of work permits are many business concerns in the country. not president obama. host: paul, chesapeake, virginia. you're on with former new orleans mayor marc morial. caller: yes, sir. i understand as a marine that new orleans is a major port city

for a lot of imports through the gulf. however, i grew up just northwest in the state of oklahoma and moore, oklahoma, has since 1999 has had three f-5, f-4 hurricanes and they have had very, very little federal support, but they have rebuilt on their own. so what is the issue with new orleans besides that the -- it's a major port city and one of their major sources of income, of course, is not only the port, you want to see how howe a city rebuilt, they've rebuilt three times in oklahoma and that's my comment except that -- you know, i understand new

orleans has had is issue and also i could go on about this after 10 years. but also the crime rate new orleans dropped almost 75% after katrina and in houston, it when up over 50%. guest: many american communities have faced natural disasters. new orleans faced a natural disaster and a man made disaster. the flooding, the devastation that took place in new orleans took place because of failed levees. levees which were improperly engineered, constructed and maintained. but for the levy breaks -- leavie breaks, we would not be having this conversation about

new orleans. but we would about southern mississippi because southern mississippi also received a scombrunt much of alabama received a brunt of hurricane atrina also. people would have gone to federal court and sought compensation. in this instance, the army corps of engineers is immune from most lawsuits involving how they design, how they engineer, how they construct and how they maintain the leavie systems around the united states. that fact's got to be clear. if i said 10 years ago and i say now, i think that people suffering -- i would suggest

that most people who suffer from natural disasters don't realize that the federal government has probably played a role. if they've been victim iced by flooding that they may not realize. there's an automatic right under the stafford act in a natural disaster for public infrastructure to receive compensation for people to be rebuilt so a lot of times there, may be federal support that people may not, if you will, realize. people in the gulf region, new orleans, mississippi, i think have rolled up their sleeves and really worked hard to rebuild. and mayor landrieu here in new orleans has also been very upfront about thanking the philanthropist, the volunteers, the faith-based organization, the community-based

organizations and foundations from all over the world who have helped the gulf coast fa time of reat need. katrina was an extraordinary catastrophe for this nation and for this region and for this city. host: and according to fema, 738,000 households in louisiana were approved for assistance after katrina. 274,000 in mississippi, 55,000 in alabama this was on the fema website. you want to see these facts and figures for yourself, here is a map of the city of new orleans and the red dots are where bodies were found. 1,073 is the official death toll from katrina. this down here is the garden district. over here is the french quarter. this is the central business district this area here. and over here is the lower ninth ward. here in new is up

orleans. christopher is in palm bay, florida. you're on with marc morial. caller: hello, sir. how are you doing? i just wanted to thank you for your words. you know, i'm an african-american male and i live here in florida. and two agree things are happening. i just moved to florida and my baby girl was born that same year. and i was one of the community emergencey response members that had to help transition with the families that came here. i lived in florida and i don't know if you guys are watching the weather but we're facing some hurricane warnings and so forth before next week. and i just wanted to make sure that we as a country is doing what we need to do. i do a lot of community work and i go through the struggles and experiences of just looking another-at-how we are put across, how we are looked as young men and women of color. and the disadvantages that we

may face and not by any fact, though i play on that, but i do see that there is a disconnect when it comes to servicing some of the low income areas. i, myself, i've done a lot of community work, worked with the youth immensely and i'm a candidate for u.s. congress for my district here in florida. and i see this as an opportunity with this 10th year anniversary and recovery to fortify our efforts in supporting communities, making sure that neighborhoods are safe but not only that, making sure that our response time to storms. because we have a lot of seniors here in florida that are worried about this upcoming storm, erica. and i just want to know if you have any take on that. host: christopher, thank you very much. guest: i think you're elevating the idea that every community, particularly gulf coast communities have to have a strong disaster response plan, and that disaster response plan has to understand that there are people in nursing homes, senior citizen centers, vulnerable

people in every single community who may need help and assistance in evacuating or in responding. maybe someone like me can get in a car, travel to another city very quickly, put down a credit card and stay for a week, 10 days or two weeks in a hotel. and that's what many people did when they had to evacuate. if they had the wherewithal. if they didn't have the wherewithal, maybe they continue do that and every community needs to be super serious about its distance ser response plan and specifically, specifically, think about what its most vulnerable communities need. vulnerable communities are communities of color, senior citizens, communities that are not communities of color. the older or if you will, senior citizens in a community, the disabled citizens in a community. what are you going to do with

people who are in hospitals? how are you going to provide for that? every community absolutely needs -- and with katrina, i think -- was, was a wake-up call about how we respond to indeed, disasters. and i live because the national urban league is headquartered in new york. and hurricane sandy was an interesting example as i watched community leaders and politicians and elected officials aggressively work to respond to sandy even in that instance. there's still a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done in parts of new york and new york three years after hane sandy. -- hurricane sandy. host: when i was down there earlier this week, two things i heard from a lot of the residence was there seem to be

kind of resistance to being called resilience and a little bit of takings of -- office at the narrative that -- office that were coming out from people utside of the community. guest: it allows you to applaud the progress being made. member those who lost their lives give due respect to those that face great difficulty. but also there needs to be this commitment and this continuation. this community still has, if you will, deep emotional and psychological, if you will, scars. but this community, i think, is

also demonstrated -- has demonstrated this example of human perseverance. one really may not know what it's like to get knocked down, to not know if you're home, if the people you love, the place you worship, the relationships you have, the job that you've invested in, the community that you know, is going to be there because in an instant, it seems to all be gone. yet 10 years later, the perseverance and strength of people and if there's something to celebrate, that's what needs to be celebrated. the ability to overcome, the ability to withstand the pressure, the ability to rebuild even after one of the great human tragedies. and i would say that for my american anywhere in the nation, if you're community faces this kind of challenge, we all need to be there, assisting, helping,

lifting, you up also. host: marc morial, president and c.e.o. of the national urban league and former mayor of new orleans for eight years. thank you for being on the "washington journal." guest: thank you. host: one more segment, looking at the 10th anniversary of the katrina hurricane. jim amoss is the editor of the new orleans "the times-picayune." he's coming up right after we show you the mari, the current mayor of -- mayor, the current mayor of new orleans, mitch mcconnell -- mitch landrieu, apologize, talking about the recovery efforts of the ninth ward area of new orleans. >> why is that so slow to come back? >> well, that's an excellent question. we have -- we, the federal government, the state governments the local governments, have money coming in. we have 73 neighborhoods in the city. you owen be surprised that african-americans that don't live in the ninth ward that want

their neighborhoods rebuilt are wealthy people that live in the new orleans east are saying oh, yeah, go give the ninth ward everything and they give us to later. everybody saying give me my stuff now and make sure it's fair and it's not a racial argument. it's not an equity argument. it's a i want stuff in my neighborhood tomorrow, mayor. and it's interesting because from neighborhood to neighborhood, i would say the one universal is get there fast. because i don't like to have the nasty things sitting next to the house. but o'neal, all politics is local. it doesn't matter if we are taking it down faster. if the one next door to the house is complaining, you have not done anything. we are trying to manage the allocation of the resources. the general said this the best when it gets hot, the poor get hotter. and when it gets cold, the poor

gets colder. before the storm happened, it was one of the poorest neighborhoods. we have spent $500 million in the lower ninth ward when you add it all up. the lower ninth ward would say you didn't give us as much as everybody else. they did but they had much further to go. and the damage is so significant that it's going to take a lot more money to do it. i will remind you though because i feel like i'm on the side of begging here and demanding more. we got about $71 billion in reimbursement. when you have that gap, not everybody gets everything all the time and you can't do everything all at once. and i'm committed to the lower ninth ward but i'm recommitmented to every city in he neighborhood too.

host: and now joining us is jim amoss from the tao "the times-picayune" newspaper. what is the significant of this 10th anniversary? guest: the importance for us is it's a milestone we've always looked forward to we've always been told when our reporters when to other disaster areas right after katrina that you will measure your progress at that 10-year mark. that will be your yardstick. and you'll be able to see whether you've made significant progress as a community. and indeed, we have. by most measures. certainly by the measures of education of our children and by economic developments, the growing entrepreneurial class in new orleans, of course, many areas that new orleans as a very poor city still has a lot of progress to make. but i don't think anybody in the

morning hours of august 29 and e days after that would have -- would have reasonably expected that we would come as far as we have come in these 10 years. host: where were you on august 29, 2005? guest: i was in a sleeping bag in my newsroom, not sleeping, however. because the storm was just beginning to hit. i had just pervaded my wife and my son to evacuate which took hours to do. they were very resistant. and then i when to our newsroom where many of our reporters and photographers and editors were bedding down to await the arrival of the storm and then the coverage of the storm. and in the middle of the night, the power left our building and you could hear the full force of the wind. a really terrifying sound as the new begin to bear down on

orleans. and of course, we didn't know at that point what the extent of the disaster was going to be and we didn't know at that point that the levees that the floodwalls that had been shotsly built by the u.s. army corps of engineers would collapse and the floodwaters would inundate the city, an area. this really bears repeating. an area seven times the size of manhattan. an urban area seven times the size of manhattan under water and staying under water in brackish salt water for three weeks. a really unimagineble and equaled disaster in the united states. host: and the video that we were showing while mr. amoss was talking, that included some videos that c-span shot one year after katrina in august of 2006, just to give you a sense of what the city looked like and then

some of the destruction around there. mr. amoss, for those three weeks, did you remain in new orleans and what was your life like? guest: no, we weren't able to remain in new orleans beyond the next day because the water was rising around our newspaper building and we knew we would be cut off and not be able to communicate with our journalists. so we -- we got into newspaper delivery trucks and fled to -- and fled to baton rouge where we established a headquarter and managed our staff from there. and at the same time, reporters and editors from the -- "the times-picayune" stayed in the city and covered it and went into some of the really badly stricken areas, even helped save eople's lives.

host: jim amoss is the editor of "the times-picayune" and kevin is a former new orleans resident, now in houston. kevin, you're on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: my personal interest about what's going on in new orleans and what has happened in new orleans is strictly about the treatment and the disenfranchisement of persons of color in new orleans all my life. the seriousness of politics not only gotten to move away from new orleans but they're making it almost impossible for persons to move back.

mortgage rates have doubled. everything is making it almost impossible for blacks to return. why is that? for one. number two, being disenfranchised has a lot of psychological scars that's attached to that. you want people to do what's right and this government has never been fair. we do know now that this was a federal disaster, not caused just by katrina, but by the improper structure and the design of the levies. -- levees. so hard for people time to o be -- it's do something, my friend. guest: kevin in houston, you

raise an immense question that has lots of facets to it and that is really a question as you have indicate not just for local leaders in new orleans, but is a national question. and if you look at new orleans, the dark side of over things that we're celebrating today, a lot of them have to do with the african-american population of new orleans. the fact that 50% of african-american males in this city are unemployed. the fact that in our prison system, 90% of the people who are incarcerated are african-americans. and the fact that the majority of the estimated 5,000 people who are still displace right hand poor and are african-american, are all factors that should weigh heavily on our national conscious. and i know -- conscience and i

know the difference between people of means -- many people of means have their houses flooded have lost them altogether. my colleague who have lost everything they owned, but they have the resources. they have the -- just the know-how to deal with bureaucracies. they had recourse in other parts of their family to be able to eventually get back and to rebuild. many poor people haven't been able to do that and as you said, weren't given enough money. take, for example, the so-called elevation grant, which was given to people a few years after katrina in order to elevate their houses and put them more out of harm's way of a hurricane in a future hurricane. many people who got those grants use them for other kinds of renovations just to make their house habitable. and then they were told by the government well, you didn't use it to -- and therefore, you must

pay us back. and it's only recently that the tide has changed on that and they are going to be given forgiveness for that. but that's just one example of the many obstacles that poor people have faced in trying to come back to new orleans and it's telling that the black population of new orleans have not come back nearly as strongly other ethnic groups and the disproportionately, the recovery, the difficult part of the recovery has been born by people of color. host: ted is calling in from ennsylvania. caller: how are you doing? on the river from the chesapeake bay to new york, we feel we've all been lied to. a lot of us are born and raised here in this land.

-- along the river, one way or the other. that after the 1972 floods the corps of engineers told us if the dams up towards new york, upper pennsylvania were in operation, they would have lowered the river three to four feet. well, we had a flood in september of 2009, they didn't lower the river one inch. everything that was the worst flood we ever saw in this river and we got no help from fema, from nobody. all of the people up along this river got nothing. now, another incident. when you -- they have several people after the 1972 flood, excuse me, that wanted to come in and dredge the river section by section for the materials in the river and they were stopped. they wouldn't let them dredge it. i know they've got a lot of excuses. the next thing i want to talk about -- host: hey, you know what, ted, we have to stop you. we have a lot of callers and we

want to get as much as possible. any response to that, mr. amoss? guest: yeah, the agencies that safeguard our cities and notably, the u.s. corps of engineers, they're human agencies and they're indeed, fallible and that certainly was born out in katrina. the big canal that connect the port of new orleans to the gulf of mexico more quickly than the mississippi river would caused tremendous damage over the years to our wetlands and our marshs and only yesterday did a judge in new orleans finally say that the federal government has to bear the entire cost of repairing the damage that was done by the federal government in the 1950's. that's one of the example that

needs to safeguard the coastal cities in particular. host: and that is your lead story this morning on the president's visit. also want to show a map. this is the new orleans diaspora. all the people who were living in new orleans down here and where they have applied for aid and this is a map of the u.s. and all the counties that are not in white are places that new orleans residents fled after katrina. constance is on our line with jim amoss from "the times-picayune." caller: good morning. i lived in carrietown which is right across the mississippi river from new orleans and i took all my kids, one live down in -- lived down in, oh, down in the southern part of indiana.

she lost everything. and my other daughter, she sold her house and she was supposed to buy another home two days after the hurricane hit. well, that house is flooded. that was in the other side of lake pontchartrain and a tree fell down on it. but one of the problems. i left there with all my family d we when to indiana and i couldn't get money out of my credit union for whatever reason it was. i when everywhere to get money from my bank and none of the banks or the credit unions in indiana to give me money because they closed down my -- i guess the whole banking system that i was under there.

the second thing was is that when i did come back because they kept saying we could come back and look my home in terry town was damaged. i guess it was a tornado right in that area. i had trees in my swimming pool and the house roof was messed up. host: constance, how much of your damage was covered by insurance? caller: well, i had had pretty it took so e, but long to gets the money back that i had to drive all the way from where i lived in terry town all the way to baton rouge just to see the people and then i think they only gave me about $2,000 or $3,000. but it couldn't -- i couldn't get all the money that i needed

for the repairs. host: and are you planning on returning to the new orleans area at all? caller: i'm scared to because i the mold and om the -- they kept -- i lived right across the street from a huge apartment complex. and they threw all this stuff out the doors and they had hired about 40 mexicans and they lived in this building with no food or, i mean, no electric, no nothing. and they were somehow or another, gotten heavy equipment and crushed the refrigerators with all the gas sitting in it and pushed all that stuff all down to the side of the road. host: all right. i think we got the idea. jim amoss, any response for constance? guest: well, constance, your

story really resonates with me and it's one that in part, i've experienced or watched friends live through. i remember in the days immediately after the storm standing in endless lines in banks in baton rouge where there was just utter chaos and the -- in the banking system and accessing your account was virtually impossible. your ould like to alive fears of new orleans as a much safer place to live and to raise a family and now, the mold problem, thank god, is long gone the water is long gone. and the flood protection that we njoy while it's not at the level of the kind of infrastructure that the netherlands, for example, enjoy, it's not category five protection, but still, it's an immense up gradkowski and it is the main reason why people in

new orleans feel confident enough for the most part live in neighborhoods and rebuild. host: allen is calling in from louisiana by the airport. . caller: good morning. how are you guys? can you hear me? host: we're listening, sir. go ahead. caller: ok. i would like to say it's been 10 years and a lot of people have been -- haven't been coming back because of the fact that it thinks that, you know, another one is going to come. and if another comes and they assume they're not going to be well protected. and the levees fail and the jewel of the city this french quarters. and if you notice, every time they have a big stone, they open

up the industrial canal and let the water go in the ninth ward, the lower ninth and that's where most of your black people live at. and the jewel never gets destroyed because that's the french quarter. guest: if you live in a coastal city of the united states, you're just about as vulnerable as new orleans is. it's been repeated by hugo and sandy on the east coast. and it's something that we have to face as a nation and we have to muster the political will that it takes to protect our cities. these are the places where most of our population is and where most of our customers and our trade originates from. but secondly about the french quarter, i would say and it is

the jewel. certainly the tuvik -- tour risk , it soints jewel higher land and in some case, eight to 12 feet above sea level because to the deposits of the mississippi river over the centuries. it wasn't until the 20th century that new orleans expanded toward the lake into what we know is the bowl or in some cases, eight feet below safely. -- sea level and is more vulnerable than some place that are high. host: what about his point about the industrial canal and the effect on african-americans?

guest: it dispurportly affected the lower ninth ward, which was ajority african-americans. and it inundated neighborhoods like you, which is a middle class white neighborhood. so the water was unsparing and in some sense, it was an equal opportunity disaster in terms of who was damaged and whose house was under water. the industrial canal happened to be the biggest body of water and it was right adjacent to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. host: julian is calling in from louisiana. go ahead. caller: yeah, just in reference to that last caller, the river had nothing to do with the lower ninth ward. when they opened to the industrial canal, i goes in a lake unless the levee falls

down. i notice the 17th streets with lake view, that was an engineering failure. did you ever find anything? when you say engineering, when you're talking about building a levy or a dike or whatever, you get -- that dictate what is the engineering's going to be because whatever you're going to put in the ground is only good for the soil you put in. and if you set a set of blueprint it's got an engineering stamp on it. was it a real engineer? guest: that's a complex question. but the corps of engineers itself acknowledged the floodwalls on the side of the drainage canal which is collapsed were not sufficiently anchored in the soil. and that eye walls were not appropriate for that kind of situation. and so when the water rose not

only to the top of those floodwalls, the pressure loosens the soil below. they weren't sufficiently anchored the walls collapsed. the water inundated the city. as for the industrial canal, it was built to connect the river to the lake. and the lake waters were able to come into it. and so that's what caused the pressure on those floodwalls. host: next call, albert in lafayette, louisiana. albert, go ahead. caller: okay. what i was calling about is the fact that the city is trying to get people to come back to new orleans. and i'm thinking that with all the political stuff that's going on down in new orleans, why is it that they only have these corner grocery stores? they need more supermarkets where people have to go like winn-dixie, different supermarkets down there in the lower ninth ward as well as upper ninth ward. now you only have one. and that's winn-dixie connected

to a bridge. if they moved more supermarkets down to the lower ninth ward, i see the area that was destroyed by katrina, you will draw more people. but all the place they have is winn-dixie down there and everybody down there in the lower ninth ward and upper ninth ward have to go to st. bernard parish and they wonder why we don't have enough money when it's going to another parish. those people are established down there. everywhere you go is a corner grocery store. if they took the money and time to put in a supermarket, you will drum more people back to new orleans. host: albert, i think we got the point. and mr. amoss, if you could, talk about how the city has changed in the last 10 years, its racial makeup, its economic makeup, etc. guest: sure. well, it's still a majority african-american city. but less so than it was in 2005.

in 2005, the african-american percentage of the population was at about 67%. and it has gone down to about 58%. and these are the people we've been talking about for the most part who just have not returned, have not been able to return. another big demographic change has been the influx of hispanic people. used to be a relatively small part of new orleans's population. now, almost 6% of the city's population is hispanic. a lot of them hispanic construction workers who came in to help rebuild new orleans after katrina and stayed. and we also have a significant vietnamese population, which has been true since the 1970's. another big change in the city. have mistaken er new orleans for an entrepreneurial magnet before

2005. and now, the number of start-ups and just the entrepreneurial pirit, the idea that is an incubator is a remarkable switch. and i would say that in the years after katrina, for a good four or five years after the storm, there was not a day that you couldn't go to new orleans airport and see large group office young people from high school kids to kids -- people in their 20's arriving as volunteers to help rebuild, to work and teach for america, and many of these people fell in love with what they came here to do and stayed and they have changed both the demographics and the spirit of large neighborhoods in the city. so those are striking changes that i think are palpable today. host: you mentioned if you go a little more in-depth about the

improvement of the schools and the changes in the new orleans public schools. guest: yeah. the biggest change is that new orleans public school system under the so-called recovery district, which is run by the state of louisiana has become almost entirely chatter school. it's a one giant charter school experiment. the biggest per capita in the united states. and not that charter schools are the solution to all the ills of schools, but governorsed by parents on location has proved to be a big reform over the corrupt public school governance that we had before 2005. and indeed, that's born out in of new s, about 30% orleans' public school children met state standards in 2005. hat number is now up to 88%.

e influx of young people who became teach for america teachers has had a huge effect on the quality of teaching in our schools. all of those things are among the great bright spots in the 10 years after katrina. host: annie is in san diego. annie, you're on with the editor of "the times-picayune," jim amoss. caller: hi. yes. i remember watching this all on tv about 10 years ago. i remember a black -- a couple of black women assisting a white woman in front of the camera and a white woman was carrying a limp baby and she was talking about her baby needed water. they had a lot of -- and i wondered why it was so hard to just get these people water. if i had a helicopter, i would drop in water. how many children died because they did not get water?

i thought we would see some statistics that we'll never get. thank you. guest: what you're talking about especially in the early days after the storm, it's utter chaos and disorganization of the relief effort especially on the part of the federal sector and the federal government really has to take some blame for that. it was -- you could see in the first couple of days after the storm had hit, you could see private retailer trucks, wal-mart trucks and the like, crossing the mississippi river bridge and yet it was days before that kind of relief came from the federal government. and i think that's -- that was a national scandal and it was there for all the world to see. and hopefully as a nation, we learned something for that and we'll all be prepared. certainly in this city, we are.

host: there are some discrepancies in the numbers of deaths in new orleans. here are some of the reports. this is from the 538.com website. state of louisiana, 986 deaths. television station in georgia says 1,200. accuweather, 1,800. and "the times-picayune" says 18 33 deaths in new orleans. why this discrepancy? est: i don't think the the "the times-picayune" said 1,800. it is the entire gulf coast region plus new orleans by most estimates including everything from new orleans through waveland and bay st. louis and gulfport and biloxi. and so that is the main discrepancy you're looking at. but again, it's hard to -- it's hard to draw a line between the tcheaths were caused directly by flooding and drowning, the death

that were caused by being in an attic for days and the stress of that and the deaths that were caused simply by older people, especially not being able to bear the stress of their lives being turned upside down and therewithin months of the are several ways of calculating that and each will yield a slightly different number. i think the overall number that most statisticians agree on is a little over 1,800 for the entire region as a result of katrina. and somewhere between 900 and 1,000 for the new orleans metropolitan area. host: here this front page of "the times-picayune" published in paper on wednesday's friday's and sunday's. nola.com is the website associated with "the times-picayune." jim amoss is the editor. mr. amoss, thank you for being on the "washington journal" this

morning. guest: it's been a pleasure. thank you. host: well, there is a lot to watch this weekend on c-span networks. politics, books and history, all weekend for you. tomorrow on c-span, hurricane katrina's 10th anniversary all day continues. and at 6:00 p.m. eastern, our live coverage of the new orleans community commemoration and celebration. book tv on c-span2 at 10 p.m. eastern tomorrow evening. our after words program talking about his book "undocumented." a dominican boy's odyssey from a homeless shelter to the ivy league. and on american history tv which is c-span3 on the weekends at 6:00 p.m. eastern time, "american artifacts" takes you to jamestown island, virginia, for a tour of the trench where is digs are conducted and a visit to the lab where artifacts are studied. those are some of the highlights. you can find more details on our

schedules on our website at c-span.org. thanks for being with us. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org] >> democratic candidates are in minneapolis on the summer meeting. we will have live coverage of that. and martin o'malley and bernie sanders will make remarks this afternoon. live coverage gets underway at 1:00 eastern today, about an hour from now right here on c-span. later this afternoon, we will

continue c-span cities tour with a visit to galveston, texas, starting at 6:00 eastern. we'll tour an 1877 merchant sailing ship and we will hear about the juneteenth juneteenth celebration in the end of slavery. we will also hear back from hurricane ike and the destruction in 2000 eight. this afternoon it is at 6:00 eastern time. president obama was in new orleans yesterday to mark the 10 year anniversary of hurricane katrina. coordinating the flooding was in the worldwide. i talk with residents also came. [applause]