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Gulf Coast Reels From Hurricane's Impact Even Indirect Hit Floods New Orleans

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast began to deal on Tuesday with the devastation caused by one of the worst storms ever to hit the United States.

Floodwaters from a canal were sending more water into already flooded areas of New Orleans. Mayor C. Ray Nagin said in a television interview that 80 percent of the city was under water, some of it to a depth of 20 feet, or six meters. Hundreds of residents have been rescued from rooftops, and as dawn broke rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for more survivors of the hurricane called Katrina. The death toll in just one Mississippi county could be as high as 80, Governor Haley Barbour said. Preliminary reports on Monday put the toll at 55.

"The devastation down there is just enormous," Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show. "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life," he said, referring to Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi.

Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi told The Biloxi Sun Herald, "This is our tsunami."

A survey team has been sent to inspect an overflowing canal in New Orleans that is spilling more water into already flooded areas, said Lieutenant Kevin Cowan of the National Guard, who is attached to the Louisiana emergency operations office. The assumption is that the canal is "simply overflowing," he said, but the team will also look for possible breaches in the levee system.

The hurricane pounded the Gulf Coast with devastating force at daybreak Monday.

It spared New Orleans the catastrophic hit that had been feared, but it inundated parts of the city and heaped damage on neighboring Mississippi, where it killed dozens, ripped away roofs and left coastal roads impassable.

Preliminary reports on Monday said 55 people had died. Jim Pollard, a spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said many of the dead had been found in one apartment complex in Biloxi. Seven others were found in the Industrial Seaway.

With winds of 145 miles, or 230 kilometers, an hour as it made landfall, the storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center. The storm was potent enough to rank as one of the most punishing hurricanes ever to hit the mainland United States. Insurance experts said that damage could exceed $9 billion, which would make it one of the costliest storms on record.

In New Orleans, floodwater rose to rooftops in one neighborhood, and in many areas emergency workers pulled residents from roofs. The hurricane's howling winds stripped 15-foot sections from the roof of the Superdome, where as many as 10,000 people took shelter.

Some of the worst damage reports came from east of New Orleans with an estimated 40,000 homes reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In Gulfport, the storm left three of five hospitals without working emergency rooms and beachfront homes wrecked.

"It came on Mississippi like a ton of bricks," Barbour, the Mississippi governor, said at a midday news conference "It's a terrible storm." President George W. Bush promised extensive assistance for hurricane victims, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was expected to be working in the area for months, assessing damage to properties and allocating what is likely to be billions of dollars in aid to homeowners and businesses.

In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, governors declared search and rescue their top priority, but they said high waters and strong winds were keeping them from that task, particularly in the hardest- hit areas.

The governors sent out the police and the National Guard after reports of looting, and officials in some parts of Louisiana said they would impose a curfew. Hurricane Katrina weakened slightly as it hit land and veered slightly eastward, apparently sparing New Orleans somewhat. The city is below sea level, and there had been predictions that the historic French Quarter would be under 18 or 20 feet of water. But beyond the property damage caused by flooding and the high winds, the storm also dealt a blow to the oil industry and the lucrative casinos that have been economic engines for the region. Both oil production on offshore platforms and gambling in the string of casinos that dot the Mississippi Gulf Coast shut down on Sunday as the storm approached. Since Friday, oil output in the Gulf of Mexico has been cut by 3.1 million barrels. Closing the casinos cost Mississippi $400,000 to $500,000 a day in lost tax revenue alone, and Barbour said officials had not yet been able to determine the extent of damage to the casinos.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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