80 feared dead in Katrina's wake

As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf of Mexico coastline today, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, with fears the death toll could reach 80.

As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf of Mexico coastline today, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

The governor said the death toll in just one Mississippi county could be as high as 80.

“The devastation down there is just enormous,” Gov Haley Barbour said on NBC’s Today show.

Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 fatalities in Harrison County, which contains Gulfport and Biloxi, and the number was likely to rise. The storm had winds of 144 mph when it hit the coast.

“We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to,” Barbour said. “I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life.”

Tree trunks, downed power lines and chunks of broken concrete that littered streets hampered rescue efforts. Swirling water in many areas hid submerged dangers.

The official death toll jumped sharply late last night when Harrison County emergency operations centre spokesman Jim Pollard said an estimated 50 people had died in the county, with some 30 of the dead at a beach-side apartment complex in Biloxi.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency officials refused to confirm the deaths.

Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.

The total does not include 11 deaths in South Florida when a much-weaker Katrina first made land last week.

In New Orleans, residents who had ridden out the brunt of Katrina now faced a second more insidious threat as two different levee breaches sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing through city streets today.

US army Col Rich Wagenaar said a breach in the eastern part of the city was causing flooding and “significant evacuations” in Orleans and St Bernard parishes. He did not know how many people were affected by the flooding.

Authorities said there was also a levee breach in the western part of the city.

Across the Gulf Coast, people were rescued as they clung to rooftops, hundreds of trees were uprooted and sailboats were flung about like toys when Katrina crashed ashore yesterday in what could become the most expensive storm in US history.

Katrina knocked out power to more than a million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Katrina disrupted Gulf Coast petroleum output and rattled energy markets.

According to preliminary assessments by AIR Worldwide Corp, a risk modelling firm, the property and casualty insurance industry faces as much as €22bn claims from Katrina.

That would make Katrina more expensive than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Mississippi’s economy was also dealt a blow that could run into the millions, as the storm shuttered the flashy casinos that dot its coast. The gambling houses are built on barges anchored just off the beach, and Barbour said emergency officials had received reports of water reaching the third floors of some casinos.

After striking the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane, Katrina was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi. Winds this morning were still a dangerous 60mph.

Forecasters said that as the storm moves north over the next few days, it may spawn tornadoes over the Southeast and swamp the Tennessee and Ohio valleys.

At New Orleans’ Superdome, where power was lost early Monday, some 10,000 refugees spent a second night in the dark bleachers. With the air conditioning off, the carpets were soggy, the bricks were slick with humidity and anxiety was rising.

“Everybody wants to go see their house. We want to know what’s happened to us. It’s hot, it’s miserable and, on top of that, you’re worried about your house,” said Rosetta Junne, 37.

A 15-metre water main broke in New Orleans, making it unsafe to drink the city’s water without first boiling it. And police made several arrests for looting.

In a particularly low-lying neighbourhood on the south shore of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, a levee along a canal gave way and forced dozens of residents to flee or scramble to the roofs when water rose to their gutters.

In a subdivision of Gulfport, young children clung to one another in a small blue boat last night as neighbours shuffled them out of the neighbourhood.

“Let me tell you something, folks. I’ve been out there. It’s complete devastation,” Gulfport Fire Chief Pat Sullivan said Monday. He estimated that 75% of buildings in Gulfport have major roof damage, “if they have a roof left at all”.

In Mobile, Alabama, the storm knocked an oil rig free from its moorings, wedging it under a bridge.