GULFPORT, Mississippi, 31 August 2005 — Rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina and brought victims to shelters yesterday as the extent of the damage across the Gulf of Mexico coast became ever clearer. The governor said the death toll in one Mississippi county alone could be as high as 80.
“The devastation down there is just enormous,” Gov. Haley Barbour said on NBC’s “Today” show, the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 233 kph and engulfed thousands of homes in one of the most punishing storms on record in the United States.
In New Orleans, water began rising in the streets in the 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. Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 1,350-kilogram sandbags into the breach.
Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County — which includes devastated Gulfport and Biloxi — and the number was likely to rise. At least five other deaths across the Gulf Coast were blamed on Katrina.
“We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to,” the governor said. “I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life.”
Along the Gulf Coast, tree trunks, downed power lines and trees, and chunks of broken concrete in the streets prevented rescuers from reaching victims. 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, saying their presence would only interfere with the rescue and recovery efforts.
More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions to Mississippi.
In New Orleans, a city of 480,000 that was mostly evacuated over the weekend as Katrina closed in, those who stayed behind faced another, delayed threat: rising water. Failed pumps and levees apparently sent water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing through the streets.
The rising water forced one New Orleans hospital to move patients to the Louisiana Superdome, where some 10,000 people had taken shelter, authorities said.
In downtown New Orleans, streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 foot to 11/2 feet of water yesterday morning. Water was knee-deep around the Superdome. Canal Street was literally a canal. Water lapped at the edge of the French Quarter.
