new orleans native, star of the hbo hit series tremay, and president of the pontchartrain park corporation, wendell pierce. long time journalist garland robinette of wwl radio and historian and author douglas brinkley. but first, and good morning from new orleans for this special edition of "meet the press." we should set the scene here. if you know the town, we're in the former bella luna, and these days it is back and prospering as a restaurant. here in our studio space, we have nothing but landrieus. with us, louisiana senior senator mary landrieu and her

brother, mayor rich landrieu, who took office almost four years -- four months ago. i almost made you older. let's put things at the top here. we've come down here so many times in the past five years, i could probably accept mail delivery by now, and you pick up on the local quarqs. when you say down here that hurricane katrina was the biggest new orleans disaster ever, you're not usually able to get the sentence out and they say, wait a minute, the levees broke. and then they say, but you're living below sea level. that's the first question to you, why is new orleans america's problem? >> the first thing is this is a historical fact it was a man-made disaster. it wasn't a natural disaster, the levees broke. that's the reason the catastrophes exist. consequently, the federal government is responsible for

repairing the damage that has been done, which has not been completed yet. that's first of all. secondly, the city of new orleans and all the coastal parishes along the gulf coast have been on the tip of the nation's sphere for independent and national security. we produce most of the oil and gas this company uses domest domestical domestically. we produce the greatest culture this country has ever seen, so it's a strange question for us when people even ask us that. by the way, we're not the only other place in america, much less the world, undersea level and we've learned how to live peacefully in those place. finally, there are clear ways to fix the problem and we should get about it fast. >> i was at a dinner where you spoke last night, it was kind of bracing. i've seen you speak a number of times, and you've used the word dire to describe your own city. you've said you have the worst police department in america,

you raised your hand, got the justice department in here to help fix it, and in your remarks you often say, i hope we make it. i hope we make it. is that expectations adjustment by a veteran democrat and a political family of this fine soil? >> what it is is a willingness to speak to the truth to this very simple notion, that success is not predetermined. there is nothing here that's brok broken. it's going to require a huge hit. we have stories that would give you great hope about the resurrection and redemption of the city, and we believe it's going in the right direction, but we have a long way to go. >> senator landrieu, before we come to you, i want to show you

a tape. years ago, you were affectionately called the landrieu family. that was the first white mayor of the city of new orleans before the current mayor. your dad, two-term mayor, former head of the conference of mayors. senator, have you searched your own soul and conscience to make sure there was no blame, that you bore none of it? have you sorted out what happened here? >> first of all, no elected official couldn't say they made mistakes, we all did. i can say i helped to lead the effort, to help the federal government to respond more effectively. we still have a long way to go, and to try to tell the story that it wasn't a natural disaster, it was a man-made disaster in that the levees did break and that our cultural restoration efforts, while we

had put them under way, needed to be accelerated. this town cannot just be protected by levees but by the coast. so i had been doing that for quite some time. but the fact of the matter is that many of us knew that katrina and the levee break was an opportunity to transform this region and transform not just the city but st. bernard and jefferson and all the coastal areas, that honestly sometimes, brian, get overlooked by the national media, that focuses on new orleans. as proud as we are of this city and as extraordinary as it is, all of southeast louisiana and all the gulf coast is a special place. and the federal government has underinvested in it year after year after year whether it's education or elt cahealth care. and as the mayor said r, the federal government has taken so much. the federal government has taken out of the gulf coast $165 billion in taxes that came from oil and gas off of our coast

that went to the if you recafed treasury to rebuild all the places in america except the place it came from. so i have been a leading voice. i'm thrilled that rich has joined and many others to say it's time, as my father said many years ago, for new orleans and the louisiana gulf to get its fair share, and we certainly intend to do that. >> i want to ask you about one of the many promises made after katrina. i want to roll in a piece of sound from president george w. bush after katrina, speaking not far from here in jackson square. >> and tonight i also offer this pledge of the american people. throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. we will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. >> senator, you heard it. did it turn out to be hollow? do you think he was telling the

truth then? >> well, it turned out to be a hollow promise, and i'll tell you why. because the federal government didn't stay and do everything they could. the federal government didn't make it easy. they made it very, very difficult. very specifically, when the mayors of new orleans and my other mayors asked for funding to help rebuild, they were offered a loan of $5 million. the city's budget is 460 million. the mayor of new orleans at the time was offered 5 million. that wouldn't buy them a loaf of bread for the week. >> and yet it said mississippi made out like bandits just next door. >> the fact of the matter, brian, that is not true. mississippi did not make out like bandits and you're going to hear a lot about that in the next couple years. there are a couple documentaries that are out, the brookings institute. but the fact of the matter is we were given a very small portion of the funding relative to our disaster. we did the best we could with it, but the great thing is their

leaders on the ground, whether it's this mayor of new orleans, st. bernard parish and others that are building schools and hospitals and rebuilding our coast and getting leaders here, which is so important. >> your city has long been chronicled the highest murder rate in the united states. would you yourself walk uncompau unaccompanied by yourself in the sefenth ward? >> i do it by myself all the time. the only way we're going to fix our problems, really, is to confront them. as wonderful as some of the recovery has been in the schools, health care clinics and other things we'll talk about later in the program, another thing is we have a police department that's lost itself completely. we have one of the highest murder rates in the country. we have to deal with that problem. what new orleans is going

through is not unique to us. hurricane katrina did not solve all our problems. it certainly made them more evident. it certainly should be looked at as help to the crime. but the immediacy of it has been brought about by hurricane katrina, and that's why we're completely redoing the police department, recreation programs critically important, but it's something that has to be done because if this city isn't safe, it will never be free and never be brought back up. it's very important. >> the secretary arny duncan has said, and others have said it, though it sounds per verse when you hear it, katrina was the best thing that happened to the school system in new orleans. and post-katrina, here you are with, what, 60% charter schools. the teacher's union says, oh, that's great, except they've tossed the teachers union out of

all of those places, and you can't educate kids on charter schools alone. >> let me say this. i know senator landrieu had a lot to do with this particular movement. the fact of the matter is, whether they're charter schools or public schools, in the city of new orleans we have the most innovative change that's going on in public education anywhere in america. in the last three years alone, our student scores have gone up in every category, and it is, in fact, an amazing story. the other day the president announced, and senator landrieu made a change to get this to happen, they've physically rebuilt every school in the city of new orleans. now, i wouldn't have said it the way the secretary said it. some say it was a great opportunity. i think it comes out wrong. i think it gave us the responsibility of building back something that never should have gotten to where it was before. it's a huge responsibility and one we should take very strongly. >> now, senator, we should note

that you were talking about wetlands before talking about wetlands was in vogue. perhaps, though, you can explain the very confusing relationship between louisiana and oil as we look at the once beautiful wetlands with that now characteristic oil line that's to be found on all the grass. a lot of folks elsewhere in the country just assumed that the anger down here would come out of the oil spill, the fact that three months of oil is sitting out there in that water. a lot of folks assumed that the folks in louisiana would be behind a stoppage until there could be a rule that if you can get oil a mile down, you should be able to stop it. what is the relationship between louisianana who love the great outdoors and have some of the great outdoors in all the world

and the petroleum that comes out of the ground? >> first of all, please know that people are very angry about that oil spill, very disappointed in the contracts as well and very furious about the oil. we want to keep our waters clean, we've tried to keep our waters clean all these years, but we do have a strong relationship with the oil and gas industry, not just big oil but independence. and the thousands of small businesses that we built that we're proud of that support that industry because the nation needs this oil. this nation consumes 20 million bear relarrels a day. it did before the deepwater horizon exploded, it does today. we're going to transition to cleaner fuels, and louisiana is well positioned to be part of the energy future, not just our past. but that's why people down here feel so strongly. we've been fishing in the same waters that we drill for oil, we've been navigating all the commerce of this country, and

yes, brian, we swim in those waters. and we believe with the right kind of balance and power we can do it. yes, a policy was necessary, but a six-month moratorium has put a blanket of fear and anxiety, and it must be lifted as soon as possible. >> but has it hurt the industry as much as you feared? >> i'm not worried about hurting the industry, i'm worried about hurting big al. a sandwich shop closed last week and that's who i'm fighting for. i'm fighting for small businesses. i'm not fighting for big oil, don't be confused. there are thousands of businesses at risk. meanwhile, the country keepz guzzling the oil, but we're out of work down here. the president has heard that message strongly ask clearly from the people of this state. >> mr. mayor, was the administration slow off the dime when the spill happened? >> i don't think so. they were down here pretty quickly. and, of course, this was a much different disaster than katrina

was. i can honestly say they've been working very hard at it. unfortunately, the focus gets taken off of where it should be, which is on bp. the fact that that spill could have occurred and this company, one of the largest in the world did not have a plan to capture that oil or clean the coast is something that is problematic. although we didn't like it, we accepted the fact that bp had the technical expertise to the extent anybody did. we obviously feel now that the well is capped, that the federal government needs to be very aggressive and really need to be sure that bp honors its responsibility to repair every bit of damage that was done. >> how should rnagan's term as mayor be remembered here? >> that's a difficult thing to opine about. >> try. >> you're not going to see me talk much about what happened during the storm. that was a cataclysmic event.

who can judge people and what they went through those few days. i don't think generally it was well done. but i would say this. subsequent to the storm, putting the city in a position to recover, as it were, i don't think he did a good job. that's why i ran against him the first time, and of course that's why i ran the second time. i really believe the city can fix itself. but i will say this, just to put an exclamation point on president bush's statements a few moments ago. there was a huge amount of damage, the damage was man-made, it was a result of the federal government's negligence, and notwithstanding what america has done for us, we have not received enough money to repair the damage that was done. and when we do, we will be able to rebuild the city faster. sdp >> senator, a question about where you perform your day job. what does it say about our country, if anything at all, that at glen beck's rally on the steps the other day, he was able

to collect a crowd, i've seen estimates of 300,000. a general tone of frustration and anger with the current size, scope and activity of government and the attempt to reinject god from american political discourse. what did you take from that? >> first of all, god has been a big part of this country since we began. this is the country built on faith and confidence and theal mighty, and you can see this region right here. glen beck's ideas are not new, it's been around a long time, and one of the reasons this region is surviving is because of our faith. what glen beck is saying is actually action, caring for the poor, caring for the sick, meeting the government in a non-profit way to do right by the people. that's where glen beck is wrong, and i'll tell you another way glen beck is wrong. he and his whole crew said this city could be rebuilt by private effort alone.

the government was terrible, the government couldn't do anything. do you know how many houses all the non-profits have built? no more than 5,000 in five years. do you know how many we lost? 200,000. so glen beck has to go back and look at the facts because he is preaching a gospel that never has existed, doesn't exist today and never will. we follow the gospel, rich and i, of jesus christ. we know what to do. others follow other faiths, but the fact of the matter is god has been all present. and you can ask anyone in new orlea orleans, when every other government left, god was still here. >> that whistle is going to be with us for the whole hour just behind us. i have to say as a confessed new york giants fan who has come to love your city, i have learned that you can call the new orleans saints just a football team at your own personal peril. please, the toughest question i will ask you will be to con

dense in 30 seconds what the new orleans saints and the superbowl victory mean. >> resurrection and redemption. going from worst to best. they move that we could actually win. this town was set to lose in every aspect that when the saints won, when they won the nfc championship, when they finally won the superbowl, it was a cataclysmic event for the people of new orleans, and that's when the people started saying, you know what? we're going to make it. >> that was the sign. >> and chris ivory's run the other night said it all. >> i'm telling you, only sports fans welcomes here in new orleans. to both mary landrieu, senator, and mayor, thanks for coming to our table this morning. up next here on "meet the press," my interview with brad pitt whose make it right foundation is among those private efforts to rebuild and

transform, in this case, the ninth ward and recover the future of the city as he sees it. we'll talk to wendell pierce of the hbo series "tremae." we'll talk to new orleans radio host garland robinette, and historian and author doug brinkley as "meet the press" continues after this brief commercial break. ♪ [ man ] if it was simply about money, every bank loan would be a guarantee of success. at ge capital, loaning money is the start of the relationship, not the end. i work with polaris every day. at ge capital, we succeed only when they do.

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>> still tough to watch even

tougher to watch after these five years. we're back with this special live edition of "meet the press" here in new orleans five years to the day that katrina touched down here. this past friday i spent some time with the actor and these days activist brad pitt. his make it right foundation is building affordable and storm resistant homes in the lower ninth ward three miles down river from the french quarter where we are. a place that five years ago really became a global icon for new orleans. it was completely flooded and destroyed. the force of the water surged through there from multiple levee breaks forcing houses right off their foundations. after the waters all dried up all that remained in many spots were the cement front steps of what used to be folks' homes where generations of families were raised. i started our interview by asking brad pitt what it was about this city that kept bringing him back and inspired

him to help in the effort to make it recover. >> there's a feel and a smell and a sound that permiates this place. i love the people and i love driving through the neighborhoods and love walking around the streets at night. it's just some feeling of community and excitement and color that i don't find anywhere else. >> look at this new wall which we watched go up. do you look out there and worry or because of the design are are your worries a little bit less founded? >> this was the first we question had to ask ourselves. are we putting people in danger? we have to make sure these things are done right. these homes are elevated above katrina floodwaters. they're stronger. they will take a category 4 and five times stronger than code and they all have egres to get

out on top. none of those homeowners will suffer the issue. it's two feet lower. this one is great. what about the other side. i'm really not qualified to speak on the condition of the whole system. but safety here was one of our four main criteria. safety. that i feel very happy and secure about. >> that's the thing. i'm less qualified than you to talk about safety of the system. unless you are a civil engineer, you're not qualified. so all of us who love the place and all of the people who live here are kind of at the mercy of the army corps and hope and prayers. >> right. and they've put in $15 billion to get it right. i don't know. the thing that i can't get over is if they had just done it

right in the first place. if they had just done it right in the first place. that's where this name came from. make it right. just do it right. bp oil spill. just do it right. do it right in the first place instead of this obsession with profit margins. >> you must have been flattered that bp borrowed your slogan for the oil spill. >> a marketing move. you know, it is in character. >> tell us more about the homes. they are unique. driving in today first time i've been to lower nine in a while, it's striking. it is happy. it looks prosperous. more prosperous than it was. obviously it was important to you. you've said if we're going to do this, why don't we start with a new design. tell us about that. >> we thought we wanted them to be safe of course. we wanted them to be -- they had to be affordable. they had to be built for a low

income family scenario. and we wanted to embed high performance and technology. we got into affordable housing and they are usually given the least -- i would say the worst material. cheapest materials. most toxic material. cheap appliances that run up their bills. things that cause bigger burden on the family. let's see if we can make this place that suffered such devastation, talk to the community and see if they will invest in this idea of this green technology, high performance outside. and these people are pioneers. they are pioneers. and this is now the greenest neighborhood in the world. it's not bad. i want to tell you, these homes last month every one of them but one was producing more energy than they were eating. families were getting bills that

were $8, $12, processing fees it tell them they didn't owe anything for utilities. there's no reason to build any other way. i think this place is a template for the future. >> our time with brad pitt on the top floor of one of the houses he is responsible for building there in the lower ninth ward. joining us now to talk more about rebuilding and recovery in the crescent city, longtime new orleans journalist, garland robinette of wwl radio. new orleans native, star of the hbo series "treme" and importantly the president of the pontchartrain park community development corporation which we'll talk more about, wendell pierce and author of "the great deluge." the book on what we happened witness here. historian and author douglas

brinkley. welcome to you all. for folks not familiar with the power of garland robinette, if you come here to new orleans at midday and you see people just stopping and abandoning their cars and traffic stopped on the mississippi, it's because they're listening to this guy who takes over the radio waves. garland, until we recently aired our own documentary on msnbc and nbc news, you told me you have been in a dark radio studio on generators. you hadn't seen a lot of the pictures. now you think about this region so much, you've lived here so long, four decades in new orleans, looking back, what was it that we witnessed here, what do you think went on those few days? >> to me it was just surreal. the united states of america couldn't take care of itself.

i've been to other places. i've seen how we respond to disaster. they couldn't get here and do the job to this day is mind boggle. >> to easy to throw a label on it and stamp is racism, classism. i once asked george w. bush onboard air force one, i said mr. president if this happened in nantucket or new york or chicago, he interrupted me and said you can call me anything you want, but don't call me a racist. that was his response to that. what do you think was at work here? >> i don't have the expertise to be able to say. when i watched your report, i had never before seen the helicopters going over the convention center from day one. and at the superdome. they have two hilo pads. the convention center has an empty lot. you can see those people as

president of the united states or browni or whoever you are. you can't lift in water and mris? it didn't make any sense. >> as you look around your beloved city these days, it's interesting to hear the people answer the question, how is new orleans do, how is recovery doing? >> i'll give you two words that i think is our hope it's called mitch landrieu. i think he's doing a terrific job. we have a police chief with a ph.d. and tons of young people, entrepreneurs coming in here. i think we're on the way. we've got a lot of problems to fight. the irony to me is i think we're the canary in the gold mine for the rest of the count. the rest of the country doesn't understand 30% of their energy sitting on wetlands. as it goes away, america, you're

in much bigger trouble than we were and you refuse to look at it. >> as we introduce wendell pierce and the work he's done in this city, i want to take a look at a piece of videotape. this is wendell pierce arriving at the family home and realizing it's been flooded, decimated, looted, it's a shell of its former self. >> that's the house. we still own it. it's still our home. and we'll clean it up, rebuild it if we're allowed to. the neighborhood is inhabitable. life goes on. >> that's from the hbo documentary "when the levees broke." pontchartrain park is next door just across the tracks. i'm sorry you have to look at that piece of videotape.

it's just across the tracks from an equal and opposite development but how are they different, the two places? pontchartrain park and chantilly west. >> it's all one area. pontchartrain park is a neighborhood that grew out of the civil rights movement. the only place where blacks could purchase homes after post-world war ii segregated new orleans. so out of something ugly, my parents' generation and pioneers of the civil rights created something beautiful. a neighborhood with 1,000 homes around an historic golf course. what they did was they made a neighborhood that everyone has desired to be in and it became an incubator for talent. >> it became a model.

crime rate way below the city average. poverty way below. >> poverty at 28%. incubator for talent. first black mayor. his son became mayor and our own epa administrator, lisa jackson, who is around the corner from our demonstration homes which are lead certified platinum with solar power. it was a place that my parents handed off to us. the joshua generation. they gave us a foundation to go out and be successful men and women in the world. when i came home that day and saw it destroyed, i thought it was dead and gone forever. >> you come back here and you're an actor. you have series and films going on. you're not a developer. you come back and see the inequity of the kind of scattered shot recovery effort and you went to work.

>> what happened, brian, and what's happening now here in new orleans, what's on display is the greatest demonstration of the american aesthetic in a generation since we rebuilt europe because we're doing it from the grassroots up and that's the story that has to be told. people are taking the time to step back and reflect on the dysfunction that was happening prior to the disaster and during the disaster and after and they said what is going to be my contribution to the dysfunctional dynamics that are here and changing the paradigm? that's the call of action people heard and said i'll step up to the plate across the city and exercise our right of self-determination and rebuild it ourselves and it's past and present residents who came together to develop their own development corporation and rebuild homes. not just infilled homes to replace them but better.

we want a 21st century solution. that's why we decided to make sure they were lead certified, silver, gold and platinum just like mr. pitt's homes. we dare say we put them right up next to his. >> this is how new orleans rebuilds itself. doug brinkley, you have spoken about and as i said written the defin tif history of what we've witnessed here. you got into a scrape as a local columnist. when you talk about the new orleans psyche and a syndrome in this city, what is new orleans when you're asked for a definiti definition? >> we look at the fifth anniversary, you have to remember that mississippi got whacked too. >> we mentioned that at the top of the broadcast. >> terrib i passed over the city of mississippi. >> we went out to try to honor

what happened out there too. mississippi river we're looking at a steamboat here nicholas roosevelt first came down. this is a great historical city and it has to be proud of its history. but too often the politicians here have been corrupt. you had bill jefferson, congressman during katrina is in jail. edward edwards in jail. toxic superfund sites that are buried here between baton rouge and new orleans is called cancer alley when you love your state and you love your country, you have to be good conservationists and i believe louisiana became treated like a third-world place because people wanted to make money and they didn't do the tough things that needed to be done to save the wetlands. there's been a lot of talk for generations and i think president obama is coming here now and this community has to be

loud and they can't be shy. we have to speak out and say we must save america's wetlands. if not, you're just saying go saints, go bourbon street and you watch your environment collapse. >> garland, when we went to mississippi many times, waifl d waveland, it's easy to see what happened there. it got swept. it got wiped clean. here we had the complication of 80% of this city under water. we have the only game in town protecting this city and that's the system of levees and flood walls. the actor and activist coming out with a new documentary that will show tomorrow selected cities around the country and then hopefully on cable tv all about the army corps of engineers. you've been talking about the wetlands. thinking about the wetlands for

years. is it going to be perversely that bp money may fund because of oil in this water may fund this marshall plan that douglas brinkley is talking about? >> it's our only chance. with ineptitude of america, your gas at the pump, every time we have a slight hurricane, your fuel goes up. if we have a big one that wipes out the wetlands, you'll pay $5 to begin with. the president doesn't pay attention to it. congress doesn't p attention to it the fact of the matter is without us -- we are the canary in the coal mine. if we go, you are in deep trouble economically and security wise. just like new orleans would not listen -- there's 16 documentaries from 1970 to 1986. i was mr. gloom and doom.

when we go to dinner and we talk to people about this, there's a dull glaze that goes over their eyes. i don't know why the human animal isn't interested in survival. >> i want to break that dull glaze. this is an essential part of this coverage i believe reminding people what it was like back then. here is a clip from "meet the press" the sunday after katrina that was beamed around the world. the president of jefferson parish pleading with tim russert and the authorities who might be watching television to send help. >> nobody is coming to get us. nobody is coming to get us. the secretary has promised, everybody has promised, they have had press conferences. i'm sick of the press conferences. for god's sake, shut up and send

us somebody. >> here's something else a gentleman who was a longtime veteran nbc cameraman last in haiti with tony. we've been all over the world here with us in this city on this trip. tony went down to the convention center and just using his personal decency went on television in front of a live camera to break the news to the country what the federal government was seemingly unaware of. the fact that people were dead and dying and abandoned without food, water or care at the convention center because they did what they were told. they went there to seek shelter and help. >> i got to tell you, i thought i had seen it all. i've never seen anything in my life like this. these people are very desperate.

these are the families who listened to the authorities. they were told to go to the convention center. there's nothing offered to them. no water. no ice. nothing for the last four days. >> we have not eaten or had anything to drink. >> the sanitation was unbelievable. the stench in there -- >> nobody tried to do anything for this man. >> dead people around the walls of the convention center laying in the middle of the street where they died right there in their wheelchair. >> national guard did not do nothing. >> i tell you, i couldn't take it. >> five years ago. wendell, it's tough to look at. it's yesterday really. it's been five years. the children and relatives of the people at this table, i'm going to go ahead and guess

would not have gone a week without water or food because their dads, their dads' companies would have found a way as nbc news did to get us supplies in the central business district. they found us in the parking lot of a used car dealer and made sure we had something to drink. what's the difference? why didn't it mter to someone? why wasn't someone able to get supplies and get those folks out? >> i think the thing you have to remember is that we have to understand that the disaster lifted the veil of issues of race, of issues of class, not only in this city but in the country. if we are to move past it and truly be a part of this wonderful recovery that we're feeling, we can't looked at it

through rose colored glasses. there's not an indictment of one person. it's an indictment of us all. we have to look at all of the issues that caused the poverty. one of the things we can't lose sight of is the fact that many heard that call from garland robinette on their radios and we tried to make a run to that convention center. white, black, rich, poor. they had the humanity within them when they saw those images and when they heard those voices cry out. this was an abject failure and incompetence of our government. no ones feet have been held to the fire. could it be a lack of respect for this region. does that hold anyone accountable? if we forget the incompetence

displayed during that week, we have to hold people accountable. if we won't hold those people accountable, make sure we hold people accountable now as we move forward and if we are truly to move past this, we have to look at ourselves and see what is our contribution to this dysfunctional dynamic and how can we change the paradigm. the dysfunction of class and racism and dysfunction of education which is the root cause of all of this. it's easy to play the blame game. i would rather take that energy and effort and let's put solutions on the table. that's what i tell my community all the time. we have done more from grassroots up with nongovernment organizations and with charities, with pontchartrain park community development corporation and make it right and catholic charities and rebuilding together. salvation army. we have all of those people that have come together. let that be an example to government of how people of all

classes can bring solutions to the table. >> douglas brinkley, what happened to that national conversation we were all supposed to have about what was exposed by katrina? >> we got amnesia. people forget quickly. you have stayed with this, brian, since day one and everybody here loves for you that but a lot of the media goes away and they come back for fifth anniversaries. when i was watching that and i was here during the storm and saw all of this, it became the moment where new orleans, there's only one fortune 500 company here. if you go up to minneapolis-st.paul, there are 20. there's not a lot of private sector money. we're not a rich city. katrina ripped a lid off a community. it showed poverty. it showed schools that didn't work. corrupt police force. this happens in too many of our urban areas. we haven't really taken it and tackled it. in many ways people tried to say it's just a new orleans problem. i think what garland is saying is it could be you tomorrow.

there are natural disaster or engineering failure or a story in today's "the new york times" about bad infrastructure in this country. we have got to save our great city. new orleans is loved all over the world. you just say it and people think of it as rome or rio or something. our country seems indifferent to it. we have leaders like mary landrieu and incidentally governor blanco during katrina is the one who eventually got the buses to get those people out of the convention center and she's the one that got the superdome refixed but she's not given credit for that. >> you have to remember with those people they have to have an opportunity to come home too. there's been an effort for those who don't have their best interest at heart that want to keep them out of the city. i just want to make sure that we know that there's a large section who haven't had an opportunity to come back. >> you know 20 seconds when you

hear it. glass half full or half empty to your hometown? >> definitely half full. we're coming back better than we were before. different but better. >> to my friends, wendell pierce, who always plays the guy trying to borrow cab fare on "treme," to garland robinette, to douglas brinkley, the great histori historian, we have to leave it there. thank you all of you for joining in this discuss. we're back from new orleans right after this. announcer: in today's markets how can you get your investments heading in the right direction? at oppenheimerfunds, our fund managers' perspective on the numbers helps uncover opportunities no matter which way the markets are moving. ask your advisor about oppenheimerfunds. call your advisor for a prospectus with complete fund information. read it carefully and carefully consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. mutual funds

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dr -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com rn t ivy tudro e.