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Hurricane Katrina kills dozens, floods U.S. Gulf

Posted on: Tuesday, 30 August 2005, 13:04 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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