Hurricane Katrina kills dozens, floods U.S. Gulf

By Matt Daily

BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) – Helicopters plucked frantic
survivors from rooftops of inundated homes on Tuesday and the
death toll rose to at least 80 after Hurricane Katrina’s attack
on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which sent a wall of water into
Mississippi and flooded New Orleans.

The hurricane’s rampage could be the costliest natural
disaster in U.S. history, according to damage estimates.

“The devastation is greater than our worst fears,”
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told a news conference. “It’s
totally overwhelming.”

She spoke after an overnight breach in New Orleans’
protective levee system allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain
to flood most of the city.

Hundreds were feared dead from the storm, and the New
Orleans mayor reported bodies floating in the floodwaters.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told the NBC “Today” show
there were reports of 50 to 80 fatalities in one coastal county
alone, Harrison County.

“They are unconfirmed but likely are accurate and likelier
to go up when we take in the other counties,” Barbour said.

Local media said 30 people died when an apartment block
collapsed in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the New Orleans’ mayor
reported bodies floating in floodwaters.

The death toll was expected to grow as rescuers struggled
through high water and mountains of debris to reach areas
devastated by Katrina when it struck the region on Monday.

The storm inflicted catastrophic damage all along the coast
as it slammed into Louisiana with 140 mph (224 kph) winds, then
swept across Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

It shattered buildings, broke boats, smashed cars, toppled
trees and flooded cities. Risk analysts estimated the storm
would cost insurers $26 billion, making Katrina potentially the
costliest U.S. natural disaster.

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by a massive
storm surge that swept in from the sea and as far as a mile

inland in parts of Mississippi. Hundreds of people climbed
onto rooftops to escape the rising water and waited to be
rescued. Others may have been trapped in attics.

BODIES FLOATING

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said bodies were floating in
the high waters.

“We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with
some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet (6
meters),” he told television station WWL. “Both airports are
under water.”

New Orleans is bowl-like city mostly below sea level and
protected by levees or embankments. The levees gave way
overnight in places, including a 200-foot (60 meter) breach
that allowed the lake waters to pour into the city center.

Pumps failed and floodwaters threatened downtown and the
historic French Quarter.

“We always were afraid the bowl that is New Orleans would
fill quickly,” Walter Maestri, emergency management coordinator
for Jefferson Parish, said in a radio interview. “Now with the
water rising today, it appears to be filling slowly.”

Tulane University Medical Center Vice President Karen
Troyer-Caraway told CNN the downtown hospital was surrounded by
6 feet of water and considering evacuating its 1,000 patients.

“The water is rising so fast I cannot begin to describe how
quickly it’s rising,” she said. “We have whitecaps on Canal
Street, the water is moving so fast.”

Police took boats into flood-stricken areas to rescue some
of the stranded. Others were plucked off rooftops by
helicopter.

“We’ve been pulling them off sometimes four at a time,
sometimes as many as 12,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer Larry
Chambers. “People are being taken to the nearest dry spot then
the helicopter’s going back and picking up more people.”

“HORROR STORY”

People used axes, and in at least one case a shotgun, to
blast holes in roofs so they could escape. Many who had not yet
been rescued could be heard screaming for help, police said.

“This is a horror story. I’d rather be reading it somewhere
else than living it,” said Aaron Broussard, president of New
Orleans’ Jefferson Parish.

In Mississippi, water swamped the emergency operations
center at Hancock County courthouse and the back of the
building collapsed.

“Thirty-five people swam out of their emergency operations
center with life jackets on,” neighboring Harrison County
emergency medical services director Christopher Cirillo told
Mississippi’s Sun Herald newspaper.

The storm revived memories of Hurricane Camille, which hit
the region in 1969 with winds up to 200 mph (320 kph) and
killed 256 people.

Before striking the Gulf Coast, Katrina last week hit
southern Florida, where it killed seven people.

Katrina knocked out electricity to about 2.3 million
customers, or nearly 5 million people, in Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, utility companies said.
Restoring power could take weeks, they warned.

The storm had swept through oil and gas fields in the Gulf
of Mexico, where 20 percent of the nation’s energy is produced.

At least two drilling rigs were knocked adrift and one in
Mobile Bay, Alabama, broke free of its mooring and slammed into
a bridge.

U.S. oil prices on Tuesday jumped $3.65 a barrel to peak at
$70.85 as oil firms assessed damage.

Governors in the stricken states called out more than 7,500
National Guard troops to help police, remove debris and give
other aid. Convoys of Humvees and military trucks headed south
on Interstate 65 through Alabama with loads of fuel and power
generators and Special Forces boat crews were dispatched to
conduct search and rescue operations in flooded communities.

The remnants of the storm spun off tornadoes in Georgia and
drenched Tennessee and Kentucky. In western Kentucky, heavy
rain turn the normally placid North and South Forks of the
Little River into torrents and rescuers manned boats to
retrieve people stranded in a flooded neighborhood. A
10-year-old girl was sucked into a drainage pipe and killed.