New Orleans recovery operations for Isaac going 'hard and heavy' today, city deputy mayor says

New Orleans is still in the midst of slow-moving Tropical Storm Isaac today. Trees are down and streets are flooded while some residents remain in desperate need of rescue. But a dozen cases of looting have been reported as of yesterday as well.

Lt. Col Jerry Sneed is both the Deputy Mayor of Public Safety and Director for the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for the city of New Orleans. He leads the storm response for the city and speaks to Zoraida Sambolin on “Early Start” this morning with the latest.

“The big thing is no power for about 160,000 of our citizens,” he says. “The winds are finally dying down,” Sneed adds. Some of his crews started cleaning up yesterday, but the winds were still too high to work safely. Sneed says they’ll “start recovery options today, hard and heavy,” when it’s safer.

“We want to get the power back up. We want to get the streets right and get our citizens back, he says. “But we can’t jeopardize life. So we’ll take care of our public safety people and energy and so forth and work safely.”

Sneed also praises the New Orleans police who have been on the scene to arrest looters. “Everybody’s got some bad people out there that will burglarize and loot even in good weather,” he says, “but the police department is doing a wonderful job.”