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Reporting Katrina: A Boy's Nightmare

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Michael Jackson and his mom, Tangela Miller, with his sisters in front of their FEMA trailer. Photo by Ann Curry.

Tears on his eyelashes, an 8-year-old boy told me today that he fears his life will never be happy again. We were sitting on the steps of the tiny FEMA trailer on his front lawn in New Orleans, and it was clear his trauma ran deep.

"I pray for a miracle," he told me. 

He wants his nightmares to end. He wants his mother to stop crying. He wants more than anything to have his home back the way it was, so his life can "be normal."

Experts believe tens of thousands of children are suffering Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in the Gulf region, 17 months now since Katrina, most undiagnosed.

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BACK IN THE BIG EASY

We'll originate the broadcast from the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans tonight. Ann Curry and Martin Savidge are here with me and both will offer reports on the status of this place: Martin on the overall picture and Ann on the children of this city. During our afternoon conference call, which I joined by speaker cell phone while sitting on a sewer drain along the side of the road (watching as two sizable rats emerged from beneath the foundation of the house across the street), we tried to rank today's news budget in some kind of discernible order: there is the weather, which continues to carry some urgency in the Eastern United States, there is a new Associated Press story (a piece of enterprise reporting on their part) about post-Katrina spending in this area, there's a breast cancer story of interest, and the sordid and sad story involving NASA in a strange way. Additionally, Mitt Romney has pre-announced (the political equivalent of pre-boarding) and we at NBC are in the news today, with the departure of the only leader of this company many of us have ever known during our tenure. Our CEO Bob Wright has handed the baton to Jeff Zucker, who has been a friend since I first arrived at NBC. Our new CEO is the first to come from a news division background. We'll note this transition tonight as well.

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Early Nightly, New Orleans edition

Brian just delivered his vlog from the Big Easy. He takes you inside the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which remarkably survived Katrina unscathed. Click here for more about the museum.

On tonight's broadcast, we'll have a trio of stories from New Orleans, including a report by Brian on the firefighter shortage.

Click here or on the image to watch the vlog.

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"I don't recall"

Two voices boom and fill the courtroom. Louder than what normally flows from a witness on the stand. These voices feel bigger than life. And what hangs in the air is the repeated sound of "I don't recall."

One voice belongs to the man on trial, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The other to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald who is prosecuting this case. Yet simultaneously, both men are sitting quietly at their opposing tables, sometimes taking notes or glancing to the big screen that displays their words scrolling line by line from a transcript. 

What we are listening to are tapes of Libby's grand jury testimony from March 2004. We haven't heard it all as of this writing, but I can share some impressions. Libby sounds calm and polite. What is most striking is that he uses the phrase "I don't recall" again and again. I would guess hundreds of times. It has been so frequent it almost feels like a reflexive response to question after question. The repetition makes use of every form of the phrase, ranging from "I don't know" to "I don't recollect" to "I don't remember."

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Live from New Orleans

As Brian mentioned yesterday in this space and on-air, the broadcast originates out of New Orleans tonight. It's been nearly 18 months since Katrina hit and just half the city's population has returned. We'll show you how red tape, fears over crime and the levees are still blocking the road home for so many people.

Brian and his producer, Subrata De, just returned from an overnight shoot with the New Orleans Fire Department. They'll have that story for you tonight as well.

Here's a photo of Brian talking with the men of Engine Company 07. I'll post a few more photos from the field a little later.

Photo by NBC's Subrata De.

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The changing landscape

Tonight there's a political story we hadn't counted on when we came to work this morning: Rudy in the ring, at least more officially than he was this morning. Also there's analysis to be done on the budget as proposed and the change(s) it represents. The debates continue over Senate resolutions, a killer cold has set in over a good chunk of the country as well. Since we'll see you from New Orleans tomorrow night, tonight we'll kick off the subject matter by following the money -- the billions given and appropriated to fix what happened -- or begin to. And we'll look at whether any warning would have prevented the horror and sadness of the storms in Florida. While I'm not trying to be a tease here, candidly, I'm about to stop by a meeting where we're going to lay out a story order for all of this.

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Cold chill grips nation

Editor's note: Patrice is producing tonight's "weather wrap" by NBC's Kevin Tibbles for the broadcast.

Better late than never... if you're a polar bear. Winter cold finally arrived this weekend with a biting blast of subzero weather from the Upper Plains to the Great Lake states. Cold winds and temperatures settled over northeast portions of the country as well.

Here in Chicago, which is experiencing the coldest temperatures in more than a decade, the city has opened warming centers for the homeless and the heat-less. And the city's lone icebreaker boat is plowing through ice on Lake Michigan and the Chicago River to keep the water flowing.

Subzero windchills forced officials to close schools in Milwaukee and Indianapolis, where later today diehard football fans will brave the cold to welcome home the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts.

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Early Nightly is up

The country is in the grip of a cold snap, and that's the likely lead story tonight on the broadcast.

In today's vlog, Brian touches on the weather and tomorrow's trip to New Orleans, where he will anchor "NBC Nightly News" on Tuesday.

Click here or on the image to watch.

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