Counting the cost of Katrina
“The devastation down there is just enormous,” Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said.
Mr Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 fatalities in the state, including 30 in the city of Biloxi where a beachfront apartment block collapsed.
Hundreds more may have died after being trapped in their homes when a 30ft storm surge came ashore, a city spokesman said.
“It’s going to be in the hundreds,” spokesman Vincent Creel said.
An overnight breach in New Orleans’ protective levee system allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city. Looting was rife and martial law was declared.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin reported bodies floating in the floodwaters.
“We probably have 80% of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet,” he said. “Both airports are under water.”
Rescuers struggled to reach areas devastated by Katrina, which poundedLouisiana on Monday with 140mph winds, then swept Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, shattering buildings, breaking boats and toppling trees.
Risk analysts estimated the storm would cost insurers $26 billion (€21bn).
Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by the storm surge, which swept as far as a mile inland in parts of Mississippi. Hundreds of people climbed to rooftops, while others may have been trapped in attics.
In New Orleans, a 200ft breach allowed lake waters to pour into the city. Pumps failed and floods threatened downtown and the historic French Quarter.
Karen Troyer-Caraway, of Tulane University Medical Centre, said the downtown hospital was surrounded by water and considering evacuating its 1,000 patients.
Boats were deployed to flood-stricken areas to rescue some of the stranded, others were plucked off rooftops by helicopter, but many who had not yet been rescued were heard screaming for help, police said.
Katrina killed seven people when it hit Florida last week. It knocked out electricity to nearly five million people, which could take weeks to restore.
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JOY SCHOVEST swam for her life, fighting Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge and its angry winds, brushing aside debris and floating cars to reach higher ground.
Behind her, at least 30 of her neighbours in the Quiet Water Beach apartments were dying, trapped in their crumbling two-storey building as it was swept away with much of this Mississippi coast community on Monday.
“We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current,” said Schovest, 55, breaking into tears.
“It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim.”
The tragedy at the apartment building represented the biggest known cluster of deaths caused by Katrina. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said the death toll in the county where Biloxi is located could be as high as 80.
Biloxi resident Harvey Jackson was distraught after he couldn’t save his wife, Tonette, and she was swept from their home.
“I held her hand tight as I could and she told me ‘you can’t hold me’. She said, ‘take care of the kids and the grandkids’,” Mr Jackson said.
