KATRINA / Hard New Test for President

By DAVID E. SANGER
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 - Not since he sat in a Florida classroom as the World Trade Center burned a thousand miles away has President Bush faced a test quite like the one he returned to Washington to confront this afternoon.

After initially stumbling through that disorienting day almost exactly four years ago, Mr. Bush entered what many of his aides believe were the finest hours of his presidency. But unlike 2001, when Mr. Bush was freshly elected and there was little question that the response would include a military strike, Mr. Bush confronts this disaster with his political capital depleted by the war in Iraq.

Even before Hurricane Katrina, governors were beginning to question whether National Guard units stretched to the breaking point by service in Iraq would be available for domestic emergencies. Those concerns have now been amplified by scenes of looting and disorder. There is also the added question of whether the Department of Homeland Security, designed primarily to fight terrorism, can cope with what Mr. Bush called Wednesday "one of the worst natural disasters in our country's history."

All this has inextricably linked Mr. Bush's foreign agenda, especially Iraq, to the issue of how well he manages the federal response to the monumental problems in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Mr. Bush knows the risks. He saw up close the political damage done to his father 13 years ago this week, when the senior Mr. Bush was dispatching fighter jets to maintain a no-fly zone over parts of Iraq and promoting his trade agenda while 250,000 Floridians were reeling from the impact of Hurricane Andrew.

But the current president, in contrast, prides himself as a crisis manager. He observed in a debate with Vice President Al Gore in 2000 that natural catastrophes were "a time to test your mettle."

The next few weeks will determine whether he can manage several challenges at once, in the chaos of Iraq and the humanitarian and economic fallout along the Gulf Coast.

Success could help him emerge from a troubled moment in his presidency, when his approval ratings have hit an all-time low. But it is hardly assured.

His first challenge is to show that both his reconfigured government and the National Guard units can perform on both fronts. Mr. Bush, his aides pointed out Wednesday, declared a disaster even before the storm hit, enabling the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deploy early. But while the National Guard was called in quickly, there are already questions about whether the aid would be swifter if deployments to Iraq were not so intense: Mississippi has 3,800 Guard troops in Iraq, and Louisiana has about 3,000.

That leaves more than 60 percent of their Guard still in the state, which Joseph M. Allbaugh, one of Mr. Bush's closest friends and his first head of FEMA, said in an interview Wednesday should be plenty for the challenge ahead.

"If anyone is telling you that Iraq is getting in the way, well that's hogwash," Mr. Allbaugh said from Baton Rouge, where he was clinging to a bad cellphone connection while trying to help muster private industry to aid in the disaster relief.

The longer-term risk is that the storm's aftermath will push gasoline prices to a breaking point - something Mr. Bush alluded to Wednesday when he warned that "our citizens must understand this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and distribute gasoline." Even before returning to Washington, Mr. Bush approved loans from the country's Strategic Oil Reserve. But that is at best a short-term measure, and should prices continue to rise, Mr. Bush will inevitably confront the question of whether his administration was ill prepared to absorb an oil shock at a time of conflict in the Middle East.

Mr. Bush's instinctive response to such moments, his longtime aides and friends say, is to set up measurements to determine whether his efforts are adequately addressing a problem. "He likes being a hands-on manager," said Mr. Allbaugh. "He wants numbers, he wants to be able to show that the ball is moving down the field." That was evident Wednesday in the Rose Garden, when Mr. Bush started ticking off statistics on the number of people rescued, the numbers of meals-ready-to-eat that have been delivered, the number of people already in shelters.

It is reminiscent of how Mr. Bush has argued that progress is being made in Iraq. But as the administration has learned in Iraq, the imagery of violent chaos, repeated over and over, can undercut even the most frequently cited statistics. And so Mr. Bush's biggest risk may be an inability to control circumstances that are beyond his ability to shape from Washington.

"The great thing about this president is that he doesn't try to use tragedy to gain immediate attention for himself," said Bob Martinez, a former governor of Florida who has endured his share of hurricanes and other disasters. "He talks to those with knowledge, and then he acts."

But now, he said, "there needs to be a powerful message to the country to energize the help," a message Mr. Bush plans to amplify, his aides say, when he visits the stricken areas, probably Friday or Saturday. Mr. Martinez noted that "the risk is that there is sometimes a big disconnect between you when you speak and when bottles of water end up in people's hands."

That may be a more complicated problem in this disaster, veterans of such operations warn, than it was after 9/11. Mr. Allbaugh noted that for all the horror of that day, the immediate damage was confined to "16 acres in New York" and part of the Pentagon, and "here you have hundreds of thousands of square miles" of misery. And the problems in the region will vary tremendously, from caring for the newly homeless in New Orleans to wiped-out ports along the coast.

KATRINA / Why do blacks "loot" and whites "find" groceries?

Captions from two photos out of New Orleans have prompted discussions about race and the media. Christine Pazzanese asks: "Should editors, in a rush to publish poignant or startling images, relax their standards or allow personal or regional biases creep into captions and stories?" [Romenesko Letters]

Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)



A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it. (AP photo)

KATRINA / CNN

"[New Orleans] a city is dying"

"A city of refugees"

CNN

KATRINA / Today's pictures

Katrina / Refugees

Scattered across several states, survivors of the hurricane try to track down missing loved ones and to keep their minds off all they've left behind.

By Carol Rust, Staci Semrad and Dirk Johnson

Newsweek

The refugees of Hurricane Katrina are tired and scared, not knowing if they will ever be able to go home again. They are sleeping in cars or campsites as far away as Houston. They worry about their belongings and their bank accounts. But more than anything, they worry about the friends and family members who have gone missing.

Sylvia Loyd wants desperately to hear from her sister, Gail. Her mom was talking to Gail when the storm hit. "My sister told my mom, 'The hood's just been ripped off my truck--I've got to go!'" said Loyd, of Chalmette, La. "That's the last we've heard from her."

When Sylvia and her boyfriend, Mike Carey, left on Sunday, they didn't think they'd be gone long. The couple found a hotel room about 27 miles west of Beaumont, La. They brought along just a change of clothes and left Carey's dog, Jake, at home. Now Carey tears up when he thinks about the beloved old mutt. Loyd says both she and her boyfriend have shed plenty of tears. "We cry and then we straighten up, and then we cry some more," she said. "What else can we do?"

Faye Bussard, 36, of New Orleans, said she tried in vain to convince her father and other relatives to come with her when she left the city. "Now I don't know how we'll even be able to find them," she said, breaking down into sobs. Even those who own cell phones often found the devices to be useless as circuits were overloaded and relay towers were down in the affected areas.

Hearing that evacuees in the New Orleans Superdome were being transported to the Astrodome in Houston, Brussard and other family members had trekked to the Texas stadium with the hope of finding them, holding aloft posters with their names.

Officials fear that many of the missing won’t be found alive. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Wednesday that the death toll in his city alone could be in the “thousands.” Fast-climbing damage estimates are in the billions of dollars. The U.S. military Wednesday sent four Navy ships to New Orleans to try to rescue people still trapped on rooftops or wedged in rubble.

Of those who did escape, people from New Orleans talked of spending eight or 10 hours to drive to Baton Rouge, just 60 miles away, and worried that they might run out of gas in the traffic jam. Lionel Drummond, an electrical contractor, fled New Orleans on Sunday with his 8-year-old son, Leonel. Searching for shelter, they drove to Jackson, Miss., then to Alexandria, La., and on to Lake Charles. They finally found refuge in a church in Kinder, La., where the hungry man and his son were fed a meal. "I've been driving for days," said Drummond. "We don't know when we'll be able to go back, and whether we have a home anymore when we do."

Parents also worry about children who will surely be falling behind in their schoolwork. Even some of the kids, like Dustin Cascio, 14, of West Wego, La., acknowledge they'll have to make up the time, probably next summer. He understood this was no vacation.

Good Samaritans have been everywhere, offering their homes, food and, occasionally, money for gas or a hotel. Deidre Sweatt, 37, of New Orleans stood inside a gas station in east Texas, burdened with worry and wear, when a kindly woman came to her rescue. "She invited us into her home so we could rest," she said. "She even fixed us breakfast."

In a campground 30 miles east of Houston, evacuees John Brennan, 87, and his wife, Renee, 84, of Metairie, La., shared their 17-foot camper with their daughter, son-in-law, three grandchildren, a dog and a cat. Renee has had two hip replacements. John has Parkinson's. They don’t know what they will find when they go home. But they were not about to complain. "This has been terrible, but God has been so good to us," said Renee. "We're alive, and none of our family has perished."

Many other hurricane refugees hope they will be able to say the same. But it could be days before they know the answer. [Newsweek]

KATRINA / Deaths

"Hundreds, maybe thousands

New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin

KATRINA / Was Bush prepared for Katrina?

President Bush flew over the ravaged city and parts of Mississippi’s hurricane-blasted coastline in Air Force One. Turning to his aides, he said: "It’s totally wiped out. ... It’s devastating, it’s got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

"We’re dealing with one of the worst national disasters in our nation’s history," Bush said later in a televised address from the White House, which most victims could not see because power remains out to 1 million Gulf Coast residents.

The federal government dispatched helicopters, warships and elite SEAL water-rescue teams in one of the biggest relief operations in U.S. history, aimed at plucking residents from rooftops in the last of the “golden 72 hours” rescuers say is crucial to saving lives. [MSNBC]

As Katrina forced President Bush to cut short his vacation, the White House is facing a perfect storm of trouble at home and abroad.

By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek

On Tuesday, President Bush called an abrupt end to his five-week “working vacation” at his Texas ranch and announced he would return to the White House two days early to oversee federal response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. “These are trying times for the people of these communities,” Bush said Tuesday during a visit to a naval base in San Diego. “We have a lot of work to do.”

For the White House, it was interesting timing. Over the last month, administration officials have deflected criticism of Bush’s monthlong stay at his Texas ranch by making the case that technology has made it possible for Bush to run the country from anywhere, even the so-called Western White House. Indeed, the Bush ranch is equipped with highly secure videoconferencing equipment and phones, and, according to White House officials, Bush has made use of them just about every day this month to talk to senior aides back in Washington and other administration officials scattered throughout the country.

Yet Bush usually hasn’t had to go far to reach his top aides. For the last month, Karl Rove, his closest political adviser, and Joe Hagin, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, have alternated turns living in a trailer just down the driveway from Bush’s main ranch house. Other officials have come to the ranch to meet with Bush face to face, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney. All three visited Crawford to discuss war strategy with Bush earlier this month. In other words, Bush’s days in Texas aren’t all that different from his time in the Oval Office, top aides say. Vacation or not, Bush is always running the country no matter where he is. “When you’re president, you’re president 24/7,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Wednesday.

So why is Bush going back to Washington now? When asked yesterday what Bush could do in Washington for hurricane relief that he couldn’t do from his Texas ranch, McClellan told reporters no less than five times that it was the president’s “preference” to return to the White House. Asked if the decision was more “symbolic” than logistical, McClellan said, “I disagree with the characterization.”

From the moment Katrina set aim for the Gulf Coast, White House officials have had two other storms on their minds: last year’s devastating tsunami, to which Bush was criticized for responding too slowly, and the political turmoil that Bush faces here at home over the war and the economy. Indeed, August has not been a good month for the Bush administration. White House officials had hoped to capitalize on a slow news cycle to tout the president’s second-term agenda and his accomplishments so far. Yet a spike in casualties in Iraq this month has deepened already widespread worries about the war. That bad news was only compounded by the stampede in Baghdad on Wednesday that left more than 800 Shia pilgrims dead after rumors of a suicide bomber sparked panic.

That dismal news from Iraq, combined with rising gas prices here at home, has sent Bush’s poll numbers plummeting to new lows. An ABC News/Washington Post survey released Wednesday has Bush’s approval rating at 45 percent—down 7 points since January and the lowest every recorded this president by that particular poll.

Bush and other administration officials repeatedly say they don’t pay attention to polls, but they do admit paying close attention to the images of the war and the presidency that Americans see on TV. That’s partly why Bush abruptly called reporters to his ranch Sunday morning to make a statement about Hurricane Katrina as it inched toward the Gulf Coast states. The message: that Bush was ahead of the storm and would be there to respond to its certain devastation. It was in strong contrast to last December’s tsunami, when Bush didn’t make a public statement about the tragedy until three days later, well after the death toll had reached into the tens of thousands.


As Bush returns to Washington to deal with Katrina’s aftermath, it’s a chance for him to look presidential and to briefly turn public attention from a troubled war to the homefront. Already, the White House has promised to send billions of dollars in aide to the affected region, and tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is expected to shave a few cents off record-high gas prices.

Later this week, Bush is expected to travel to the affected region, where his poll numbers have taken a hit over concerns about the war. In Louisiana, more than a quarter of the state’s National Guard troops are currently in Iraq—a stat that had local officials concerned considering the role the guard typically plays in helping the state weather such storms. A Survey USA poll released earlier this month found Bush’s approval rating in Louisiana had dipped to 48 percent—down 5 points since July.

Beyond the poll numbers, the Bush administration faces some immediate, urgent challenges—and serious questions about its response to the disaster. For all the president’s statements ahead of the hurricane, the region seemed woefully unprepared for the flooding of New Orleans—a catastrophe that has long been predicted by experts and politicians alike. There seems to have been no contingency planning for a total evacuation of the city, including the final refuges of the city’s Superdome and its hospitals. There were no supplies of food and water ready offshore—on Navy ships for instance—in the event of such flooding, even though government officials knew there were thousands of people stranded inside the sweltering and powerless city.

Then there’s the speed of the Bush administration’s response to such disasters. Just one week ago the White House declared that a major disaster existed in Louisiana, specifically most of the areas (such as Jefferson Parish) that are now under water. Was the White House psychic about the disaster ahead? Not exactly. In fact the major disaster referred to Tropical Storm Cindy, which struck the state a full seven weeks earlier. That announcement triggered federal aid for the stricken areas, where the clean-up had been on hold for almost two months while the White House chewed things over.

Now, faced with a far bigger and deadlier disaster, the Bush administration faces at least two difficult questions: Was it ready to deal with the long-predicted flooding of New Orleans? And is it ready to deal with the long-predicted terrorist attack that might some day strike another of our big cities?

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

KATRINA / New Orleans fears thousands dead

NEW ORLEANS - Authorities all but surrendered the streets of New Orleans to floodwaters, looting and other lawlessness Wednesday as the mayor called for a total evacuation and warned the death toll from Hurricane Katrina could reach into the thousands.

The grim estimate came as desperation deepened in the city, with gunfire crackling sporadically and looters by the hundreds roaming the streets and ransacking tiny shops and big-box stores alike with impunity.

“We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water,” and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: “Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.”

That would make Katrina the deadliest natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

With most of the city under water, Army engineers prepared to plug New Orleans’ breached levees with giant sandbags, and authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of people left in the Big Easy and practically abandon the below-sea-level city. Most of the evacuees — including thousands now suffering in the hot and muggy Superdome — will be moved to the Astrodome in Houston, 350 miles away.

There will be a “total evacuation of the city. We have to. The city will not be functional for two or three months,” Nagin said. And he said people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

KATRINA / O pior pesadelo

É o pior pesadelo alguma vez imaginado. A mistica cidade de Nova Orleãns está a beira de ser riscada do mapa como se da Atlantida se tratasse.

“Isto é como Hiroshima”, disse o governador do Mississippi, Haley Barbour, quando viu do ar o mar ocupar 80 por cento da superficie da cidade.

Na quarta-feira de manhã, as autoridades decidiram evacuar para a cidade de Houston, a 500 kilómetros de distancia, o meio milhão de pessoas que ainda permanecen em Nova Orleãns, e o exército passou a ocupar pontos estratégicos da cidade, ao abrigo da Lei Marcial e uma declaração de “Desastre Nacional”, decretada pela Casa Branca.

Durante esa madrugada, o Pentágono moveu para a zona cinco navios da marinha, dois com instalações hospitales, e otros cinco de apoio às operações de resgate. Uma tarefa macabra, porque toda a gente sabe que a sua funcão principal vai ser recuperar as centenas de cadáveres que dentro de poucos dias vão aparecer a flutuar nas ruas.

“A qualquer momento os cadáveres vão representar um sério problema de saúde. Podem ser o início de uma epidemia”, disse o presidente da Câmara de Nova Orleãns, Ray Nagin.

De resto, um pouco por todo lado, começaram a aparecer enormes cruzes cor-de-laranja nas paredes das casas. Foram pintadas pelos bombeiros e cada uma representa um morto encontrado no interior e cujo corpo será recuperado mais tarde.

“Os mortos podem esperar, agora temos de nos ocupar dos vivos”, disse John Furrel, um bombeiro entrevistado pela CNN.

A inundação de Nova Orleãns foi sempre uma espécie de mito na história da cidade, situada a 9 metros abaixo do nivel do mar, mas quando na semana pasada o furacão Katrina começou a aproximarse do delta do rio Mississippi, muitos analistas e observadores começaram a recordar uma serie de artigos do diario Times-Picayune, chamada “Washing Away”, publicados no ano pasado e que obtiveram um Pulitzer, onde se fazia uma análise do impacte de um furacão de categoria 4 ou 5 e se concluia que a cidade seria riscada do mapa e todo o medio ambiente da zona alterado para sempre.

O furacão Katrina chegou a Nova Orleãns ao amanhecer de segunda-feira. Durante 24 horas os ventos arrasaram quase todas as árvores, destruiram as fachadas de vidro dos hotéis e as montras das lojas da célebre Canal Street, derrubaram as centenarias paredes do Bairro Francês e arrancaram milhares de telhados dos bairros mais pobres dos arredores da cidade.

Mas, ao contrário do esperado, ao inicio as inundações não foram um problema. As águas penetraram uns dois metros nalgumas zonas e não representavam um perigo. Até que a meia manhã de terça-feira o alarme foi dado: apesar de que Katrina tinha ido embora e a chuva parado, as autoridades detectaram que o nivel das águas continuava a subir.

Feitas as investigações, descobriu-se que um dique tinha rebentado e o mar estava a entrar lentamente. No fim do dia o nivel das águas chegava, nalgumas zonas, a 8 metros de altura, o equivalente a um segundo andar. Até que na quarta-feira de manhã veio o pior. Rebentaram outros 9 diques e a cidade transformou-se numa Veneza e a Nagin, não lhe restou outra alternativa que ordenar a evacuação total.

“Isto é o nosso pior pesadelo. Nova Orleãs não vai desaparecer, mas vamos demorar muito tempo em recuperála”, afirmou. Quando? Ninguém sabe.

“Neste momento não quero dar nenhum pronóstico porque as coisas estão a acontecer tão rapidamente que não dá. Mas é caso para preguntar se a função de Presidente da Cámara da cidade tem alguma razão de ser”, disse o portavoz do Departamento de Segurança Territorial, do estado do Luisiana, Mark Smith.

O furacão também teve um grande impacte na industria do petróleo do Golfo de México. Uma plataforma maritima amanheceu segunda-feira encostada a uma ponte no centro da cidade de Biloxi, vizinha de Nova Orleãns, mas na Florida, por exemplo, os preços da gasolina começaram a subir imediatamente e as autoridades admitem discretamente que podiam decretar o racionamento.

Feitas as primeiras contas as conclusões são catastróficas. Katrina já provocou um prejuízo de 25 mil milhões de dólares, segundo o Instituto de Informação de Seguros. O barril do crude já chegou aos 70 dólares.

Apanhados numa cidade à beira de desaparecer, rodeados de água por todos lados a subir constantemente, as imagens que as televisões estão a transmitir são alucinantes. Dezenas de helicópteros a resgatar pessoas nos tectos das casas, camiões do exército a recolher familias inteiras encontradas a nadar nas ruas e dezenas de fogos que se propagam de casa em casa porque os bombeiros não podem acudir.

“Isto parece um filme, mas não é. Isto é a nossa vida que se transformou definitivamente”, disse um jornalista da FoxNews.

Até ao fecho desta edição os portavozes do Departamento de Segurança Territorial, informavam que os mortos confirmados eram já 140. Cinquenta e cinco pessoas morreram na madrugada de segunda-feira quando ruiu o edificio de sete andares em que viviam. Um homem, a chorar, contava a um jornalista da MSNBC como a sua mulher desapareceu nas águas quando ele perdeu as forças e não aguentou mais.

“Foi-se, foi-se... eu não aguentei mais e ela disse-me, ‘salva as crianças’... e foi-se, foi-se”, disse o homem. A cena fechou com ele abraçado ao jornalista, e os dois a chorar.

O mais impressionante de todo este desastre foi a ausencia de pânico. Foi tão imediato que as pessoas não tiveram tempo para entrar em pânico. No domingo de manhã, quando 20,000 pessoas faziam fila para refugiar-se no Dome, o estádio fechado do centro de Nova Orleãns, a Guarda Nacional não teve muito trabalho para manter a ordem. Uma mulher dizia que ninguém ia morrer, “a menos que Deus o queira”, e todos à sua volta parecian tranquilamente de acordo.

“O Senhor é que sabe, ele é que manda”, dizia a mulher, afroamericana, como de resto a esmagadora maioria dos habitantes da cidade.

Mas no meio desta desgraça toda há quem se aproveite. Uma das maiores dores de cabeça da policia são as pilhages às lojas, supermercados e armazéns. Dezenas de jovens foram filmados e fotografados a sairem das lojas em Canal Street, alguns com carrinhos de supermercado cheios de ropa, sapatos, televisores, comida, água mineral, tudo o que puderam apanhar. “Isto? Veio da loja do povo”, disse um deles quando um jornalista lhe preguntou onde tinha robado um televisor.

A policia faz os impossiveis para evitar as pilhagens, mas não dá abasto. Segundo o Times-Picayune, desapareceu um arsenal inteiro duma armaria. Já houve um caso em que os ladrões dispararam contra a policia durante uma pilhagem.

“Há grupos armados a mexerem-se na cidade”, confirmou Walter Ebbert, o director de segurança territorial de Nova Orleãns. O problema, indicou, pode agravar-se quando o exército também começar a disparar.

Até agora os portavozes do Pentágono garantem que não há ordens para disparar, mas com a situação a agravarse minuto a minuto, a decisão pode ser alterada.

RUI FERREIRA, em Miami

O Independente

KATRINA / The coverage from Biloxi town newspaper

Complete coverage from the Biloxi Sun Herald. Click on the logo.

KATRINA / Damage called "catastrophic"

New Orleans reported to be 80% underwater, ports closed

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday that Hurricane Katrina had caused "catastrophic damage" to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Michael Brown, the director of FEMA, also said it would be "quite a while" before displaced residents could return to the affected areas, according to the Associated Press.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told NBC's "Today Show" that the death toll from a single county in the state could be as high as 80.

New Orleans was reported to be 80% underwater, ports in the region were closed until further notice, and at least one levee break cause more flooding in the hard-city city.

Crude oil futures touched an all-time high of $70.85 in New York trading as investors sought to gauge the severity and longevity of disruption in the sector.

Rescuers searched by boat and helicopter for survivors and brought soaked victims to shelters.Katrina, potentially one of the costliest storms in U.S. history, was downgraded to a tropical depression on Tuesday, with the center of the storm charted about 25 miles south of Clarksville, Tenn. as of 11 a.m. Eastern time.

Rainfall accumulations of 2-6 inches will accompany Katrina across the Ohio Valley, the lower Great Lakes, and into northern New England, the Nationa. In the aftermath of the storm, the National Weather Service also warned of the threat of tornadoes.

The storm hit the Gulf Coast early Monday as a Category 4 hurricane, with 145-mph winds.

U.S. stocks rallied as oil jitters and fears of the economic impact of the hurricane eased.

New Orleans was pounded Monday, and, although it escaped the eye of the storm, two flood levees broke, and 80% of the city was reported to be underwater. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned of the possibility of a "significant" death toll in the city of almost half a million with a metropolitan population of 1.3 million.

The worst flooding was reported on Mississippi's Gulf coastline, which was slammed by a 22-foot surge, the AP said.

More than 1.8 million homes and businesses were without power Tuesday in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, according to utilities in the region. Utility companies said customers should be prepared for extended outages, as damage to the utility's system could take weeks to repair.

According to catastrophe-modeling firms, the hurricane could cost insurers $9 billion to $26 billion, making the storm at least the fourth-most-expensive catastrophe in U.S. history, after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Risk Management Solutions said the hurricane could result in between $10 billion and $25 billion in insured losses.

Eqecat initially estimated insured losses of $12 billion to $25 billion, then cut its range to $9 billion to $16 billion.

Fitch Ratings said Hurricane Katrina likely would result in the largest insured loss from a single event since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the largest U.S. hurricane loss since Hurricane Andrew, which caused $21 billion in damage and killed more than 40 people in South Florida.

Fitch added that the loss would be material to both the primary insurers located in the United States and to the reinsurance industry.

The hurricane's impact on the transport sector is being felt along most of the Gulf Coast, with the Port of New Orleans, the country's biggest by volume, shut to commerce until further notice. The Port of New Orleans handled 31.4 million tons of cargo in 2004.

Port Fourchon in Lousiana, through which about one-sixth of the U.S. oil supply travels, remained closed and without power, Ted Falgout, director of the port, told the cable channel CNBC Tuesday. Falgout could not say when the port would be reopened, adding that power would need to be restored first.

Falgout also noted that an alternative port, Venice, was even harder-hit, and called the outlook for the energy sector "very iffy."

The Coast Guard ordered all ports shut from Morgan City, La., to Pensacola, Fla., ahead of the storm.

The closures are likely to send prices sharply higher in numerous commodity markets.

The New York Board of Trade declared a "force majeure" on coffee deliveries at the Port of New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina, meaning that deliveries won't be made until a date to be determined by the board. September coffee closed 92.6 cents a pound, up 1% Monday, ahead of the news.

Katrina shuttered nine airports throughout the southeastern United States and caused delays at regional facilities as well.

A meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center said the northern part of the storm's eye came ashore at about 7 a.m. Eastern time Monday. The hurricane had been a Category 5 storm before being downgraded to Category 4 as it made landfall. It was ultimately downgraded to Category 1 by Monday afternoon.

As the storm moved north, Nissan North America halted production at its Canton, Miss., plant. The Nissan Motors unit said it plans to resume production Tuesday morning, though the plan would be revised based on local conditions.

Gas futures spiked 16.4%, and oil traded at $70 a barrel amid fears that Katrina had severely damaged the oil-transport infrastructure. A potential crisis in the natural-gas market was averted after Sabine Pipeline LLC reopened the Henry Hub gathering facility.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. said that daily net production of 65 million cubic feet of gas and 5,000 barrels of oil was shut in as a result of the storm. The company expects that personnel will begin returning to offshore platforms to assess damage later this week, it said.

Valero Energy Corp. said that its St. Charles refinery in Louisiana is without power and that it may take two to three days for power to be restored. Valero expects to reopen the refinery, which has a production capacity of 260,000 barrels a day, in one to two weeks. The company said that no major damage is apparent and there's no evidence of spills or leaks.

KATRINA / Governor: Evacuate New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast (search) pushed aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city.

Two levees broke and sent water coursing into the streets of the Big Easy a full day after New Orleans appeared to have escaped widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 80 percent of the below-sea-level city was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes swamped.

"The situation is untenable," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "It's just heartbreaking."

One Mississippi county alone said its death toll was at least 100, and officials are "very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher," said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to Biloxi and Gulfport.

Thirty of the victims in the county were from a beachfront apartment building that collapsed under a 25-foot wall of water as Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds. And Louisiana officials said many were feared dead there, too, making Katrina one of the most punishing storms to hit the United States in decades.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.

"We're not even dealing with dead bodies," Nagin said. "They're just pushing them on the side."

The flooding in New Orleans grew worse by the minute, prompting the evacuation of hotels and hospitals and an audacious plan to drop huge sandbags from helicopters to close up one of the breached levees. At the same time, looting broke out in some neighborhoods, the sweltering city of 480,000 had no drinkable water, and the electricity could be out for weeks.

With water rising perilously inside the Superdome, Blanco said the tens of thousands of refugees now huddled there and other shelters in New Orleans would have to be evacuated.

She asked residents to spend Wednesday in prayer.

"That would be the best thing to calm our spirits and thank our Lord that we are survivors," she said. "Slowly, gradually, we will recover; we will survive; we will rebuild."

All day long, rescuers in boats and helicopters pulled out shellshocked and bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. The Coast Guard said it has rescued 1,200 people by boat and air, some placed shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with stories of survival and of those who didn't make it.

"Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

Frank Mills was in a boarding house in the same neighborhood when water started swirling up toward the ceiling and he fled to the roof. Two elderly residents never made it out, and a third was washed away trying to climb onto the roof.

"He was kind of on the edge of the roof, catching his breath," Mills said. "Next thing I knew, he came floating past me."

Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, more than 1 million residents remained without electricity, some without clean drinking water. An untold number who heeded evacuation orders were displaced and 40,000 were in Red Cross shelters, with officials saying it could be weeks, if not months, before most will be able to return.

Emergency medical teams from across the country were sent into the region and President Bush cut short his Texas vacation Tuesday to return to Washington to focus on the storm damage.

Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown warned that structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in floodwaters made it unsafe for residents to come home anytime soon. And a mass return also was discouraged to keep from interfering with rescue and recovery efforts.

That was made tough enough by the vast expanse of floodwaters in coastal areas that took an eight-hour pounding from Katrina's howling winds and up to 15 inches of rainfall. From the air, neighborhood after neighborhood looked like nothing but islands of rooftops surrounded by swirling, tea-colored water.

In New Orleans, the flooding actually got worse Tuesday. Failed pumps and levees apparently spilled from Lake Pontchartrain into streets. The rising water forced hotels to evacuate, led a hospital to move boatlift patients to emergency shelters, and drove the staff of New Orleans' Times-Picayune newspaper out of its offices.

Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach, and expressed confidence the problem could be solved. But if the water rose a couple feet higher, it could wipe out water system for whole city, said New Orleans' homeland security chief Terry Ebbert.

In devastated Biloxi, Miss., areas that were not underwater were littered with tree trunks, downed power lines and chunks of broken concrete. Some buildings were flattened.

The string of floating barge casinos crucial to the coastal economy were a shambles. At least three of them were picked up by the storm surge and carried inland, their barnacle-covered hulls sitting up to 200 yards inland.

The deadliest spot yet appeared to be Biloxi's Quiet Water Beach apartments, where authorities said about 30 people were washed away. All that was left of the red-brick building was a concrete slab.

"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current," 55-year-old Joy Schovest said through 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."

"What I'm authorized to say now is we expect the death toll to be higher than anything we've ever seen before," said Jim Pollard, civil defense spokesman for Mississippi's Harrison County, which includes Biloxi and Gulfport.

Asked if the toll could be higher than Hurricane Camille in 1969 when 131 were killed in Mississippi and 40 went missing, Pollard referred back to his statement and said, "That would be higher wouldn't it?"

Said Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway: "This is our tsunami."

Looting became a problem in both Biloxi and in New Orleans, in some cases in full view of police and National Guardsmen. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter in New Orleans, but was expected to recover, Sgt. Paul Accardo, a police spokesman.

On New Orleans' Canal Street, which actually resembled a canal, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores, some packing plastic garbage cans with loot to float down the street. One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.

"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store!"

Outside the broken shells of Biloxi's casinos, people picked through slot machines to see if they still contained coins. "People are just casually walking in and filling up garbage bags and walking off like they're Santa Claus," said Marty Desei, owner of a Super 8 motel.

Insurance experts estimated the storm will result in up to $25 billion in insured losses. That means Katrina could prove more costly than record-setting Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which caused an inflation-adjusted $21 billion in losses.

Oil prices jumped by more than $3 a barrel on Tuesday, climbing above $70 a barrel, amid uncertainty about the extent of the damage to the Gulf region's refineries and drilling platforms.

By midday Tuesday, Katrina was downgraded to a tropical depression, with winds around 35 mph. It was moving northeast through Tennessee at around 21 mph, with the potential to dump 8 inches of rain and spin off deadly tornadoes.

Katrina left 11 people dead in its soggy jog across South Florida last week, as a much weaker storm.

KATRINA / New Orleans under water

KATRINA / Waters Rise in New Orleans

"This is our Tsunami"

City's levees break; estimated 80 dead in one Mississippi county

Mayor: "80% of New Orleans under water"

GULFPORT, Miss. — Death and destruction ravaged the severely storm-battered Gulf Coast Tuesday, with as many as 80 dead in one Mississippi county alone as the frantic search for survivors of Hurricane Katrina continued.

"We have nowhere to go," one broken man whose wife and house were swept away by floodwaters in Gulfport, Miss., told FOX News. "I lost everything. That's all I had. That's all I had."

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi, and the number was likely to rise. At least five other deaths across the Gulf Coast were blamed on Katrina.

"The devastation down there is just enormous," Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show, the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 145 mph and engulfed thousands of homes in one of the most punishing storms on record in the United States.

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

The biggest known cluster of deaths was at the Quiet Water Beach apartments in Biloxi, a red-brick beachfront complex of about 100 units. Harrison County, Miss., emergency operations center spokesman Jim Pollard said about 30 people died there.

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

Joy Schovest, 55, was in the apartment complex with her boyfriend, Joe Calvin, when the water began rising. They stayed despite a mandatory evacuation order.

"The water got higher and higher," she said, breaking into tears. "It pushed all the doors open and we swam out. We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current. 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 Red Cross told reporters the Katrina relief effort would be bigger than that of Sept. 11.

"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."

Floodwaters engulfed entire towns and cities, power was out, phone service was down and many were stranded. Thousands of National Guardsmen were activated in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

The White House announced that President Bush would be cutting his vacation short and returning to Washington a few days early to monitor the recovery effort.

"We have got a lot of work to do," Bush said Tuesday.

The president had been scheduled to return to the nation's capital on Friday, after spending more than four weeks operating from his ranch in Crawford, Central Texas.

In New Orleans, water began rising in the streets Tuesday morning, apparently because of a break on a levee along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network of pumps, canals and levees. Many of the pumps were not working Tuesday morning.

Water was knee-deep around the Superdome and lapped at the edge of the French Quarter. Canal Street was literally a canal. Little islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. The Hyatt Hotel and other high-rise buildings around the Superdome had rows and rows of shattered windows. The city considered bringing in barges to provide electricity.

The mayor issued an emergency evacuation order.

"At first light, the devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach, and expressed confidence the problem could be solved within hours.

"It's a very slow rise, and it will remain so until we plug that breach. I think we can get it stabilized in a few hours," said Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief.

Louisiana officials said people in some swamped neighborhoods were feared dead, but gave no immediate numbers.

As for the death toll in Louisiana, the governor said only: "We have no counts whatsoever, but we know many lives have been lost."

New Orleans, a city of 480,000, was mostly evacuated over the weekend as Katrina closed in, but those who stayed behind faced another, delayed threat: rising water. Failed pumps and levees apparently sent water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing through the streets.

Downtown streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 to 1 1/2 feet of water Tuesday morning.

The rising water forced one New Orleans hospital to move patients to the Louisiana Superdome, where some 10,000 people had taken shelter, and prompted the staff of New Orleans' Times-Picayune newspaper to abandon its offices, authorities said.

National Guardsmen brought in people from outlying areas to the Superdome in the backs of big 2 1/2-ton Army trucks. Louisiana's wildlife enforcement department also brought people in on the backs of their pickups. Some were wet, some were in wheelchairs, some were holding babies and nothing else.

"All I know is when my people go out, they tell me there are a lot of people awaiting rescue. I hear there are hundreds of people still on their rooftops," said Gen. Ralph Lupin, commander of National Guard troops at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Louisiana emergency operations officials in Baton Rouge said people could not go home. Bridges connecting mainland Louisiana and New Orleans were washed away and parts of Interstate 10 were underwater.

Reports that martial law had been declared in New Orleans proved to be false.

All along the Gulf Coast, tree trunks, downed power lines and trees, and chunks of broken concrete in the streets hampered rescue efforts, which were being conducted by boat and helicopter.

Swirling water in many areas contained hidden dangers. Crews worked to clear highways. Along one Mississippi highway, motorists themselves used chainsaws to remove trees blocking the road.

Officials said it could be a week or more before many of the evacuees are allowed back. They warned people against trying to return to their homes while the rescue and recovery are still going on.

"I don't want anyone not in the city to come back. What we're doing is trying to make the best of a bad situation and we need people to cooperate," New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass said.

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 in what could become the most expensive storm in U.S. history.

The hurricane knocked out power to more than 1 million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone.

"We know that last night we had over 300 folks that we could confirm were on tops of roofs and waiting for our assistance. We pushed hard all throughout the night. We hoisted over 100 folks last night just in the Mississippi area. Our crews over New Orleans probably did twice that," Capt. Dave Callahan of the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mississippi said on ABC.

Teresa Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, shook her head is disbelief as she took photographs of the damage in her hometown.

"Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean. We're going to rebuild, but it's going to take long time. Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now," she said. Hurricane Camille killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1969.

In Biloxi mayor's office said the storm's surge put at least five casinos out of commission. The Hard Rock Cafe and Beau Rivage were severely damaged. The bottom floors of a condominium were all but washed away. All that remained of one hotel was the toilets.

Katrina's surge also demolished major bridges along the coast. The storm swept sailboats onto city streets in Gulfport and obliterated hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community landmarks and condominiums.

A foot of water swamped the emergency operations center at the Hancock County courthouse — which sits 30 feet above sea level. The back of the courthouse collapsed under the onslaught.

Katrina also disrupted petroleum output in the very center of the U.S. oil refining industry and rattled energy markets.

Oil prices jumped by more than $3 a barrel on Tuesday, climbing above $70 a barrel, amid uncertainty about the extent of the damage to the Gulf region's refineries and drilling platforms.

According to preliminary assessments by AIR Worldwide Corp., a risk assessment company, the insurance industry faces as much as $26 billion in claims from Katrina. That would make Katrina more expensive than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew, which caused some $21 billion in insured losses in 1992 to property in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.

Mississippi's economy was dealt a blow that could run into the millions, as the storm shuttered the flashy casinos that dot its coast. The governor said emergency officials had reports of water reaching the third floors of some casinos.

After striking the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane, Katrina was soon downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi, moving north at 21 mph.

By midday Tuesday, Katrina weakened to a tropical depression, with winds around 35 mph. It was moving northeast through Tennessee at around 21 mph.

Forecasters said that as the storm moves north over the next few days, it could swamp the Tennessee and Ohio valleys with a potentially ruinous 8 inches or more of rain. On Monday, Katrina's remnants spun off tornadoes and other storms in Georgia that smashed dozens of buildings and were blamed for at least one death.

At the Superdome, where power was lost early Monday, thousands spent a second night in the dark bleachers. With the air conditioning off, the carpets were soggy, the bricks were slick with condensation 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 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 neighborhood 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.

"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It just kept rising and rising and rising," said Bryan Vernon, who spent three hours on his roof, screaming over howling winds for someone to save him and his fiancée.

Across a street that had turned into a river bobbing with garbage cans, trash and old tires, a woman leaned from the second-story window of a brick home and pleaded to be rescued. "There are three kids in here," the woman said. "Can you help us?"

In a subdivision of Gulfport, young children clung to one another in a small blue boat Monday evening as neighbors shuffled them out of the neighborhood.

"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 percent of buildings in Gulfport have major roof damage, "if they have a roof left at all."

Harrison County coroner Gary Hargrove said rescuers in flood areas should focus first on finding those who are still alive rather than worrying about floating bodies they might come across.

"If they're dead, they're dead," Hargrove said. "We've got the living to take care of."

Mike Spencer of Gulfport made the mistake of trying to ride out the storm in his house. He told NBC that he used his grandson's little surfboard to make his way around the house as the water rose around him.

Finally, he said, "as the house just filled up with water, it forced me into the attic, and then I ended up kicking out the wall and climbing up to a tree because the houses around me were just disappearing." He said he wrapped himself around a tree branch and waited four or five hours.

Anne Anderson said she lost her family home in Gulfport.

"My family's an old Mississippi family. I had antiques, 150 years old or more, they're all gone. We have just basically a slab," she told NBC. She added: "Behind us we have a beautiful sunrise and sunset, and that is going to be what I'm going to miss the most, sitting on the porch watching those."

FOX News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans, Caroline Shively, Shepard Smith and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

KATRINA / The Times-Picayune blog

The Times-Picayune is one of the most important newspapers in New Orleans. They are evacuating their building now. See the Blog, click on the logo.

KATRINA / More pictures, more horror