Assessing Aftermath

NEW ORLEANS -- With thousands feared drowned in what could be America's deadliest natural disaster in a century, New Orleans' leaders all but surrendered the streets to floodwaters Wednesday and began turning out the lights on the ruined city -- perhaps for months.\nLooting spiraled so out of control that Mayor Ray Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and focus on the brazen packs of thieves who have turned increasingly hostile.\nNagin called for an all-out evacuation of the city's remaining residents. Asked how many people died, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."\nWith most of the city under water, Army engineers struggled to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags and concrete barriers, and authorities drew up plans to clear out the tens of thousands of remaining people 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.\nIf the mayor's death-toll estimate holds true, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which have been blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.\nIn Mississippi, bodies are starting to pile up at the morgue in hard-hit Harrison County. Forty corpses have brought to the morgue already, and officials expect the death toll in the county to climb well above 100.\nPresident Bush flew over New Orleans 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."\n"We're dealing with one of the worst natural 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.\nThe federal government dispatched helicopters, warships and 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.\nMegan Barrios, a Louisiana native and third year master student in the School of Music, hopes the city re-builds wisely. "What I really want to see is the state of Louisiana use the relief money wisely," she said. \nBarrios said as officials begin reconstructing the city, they should keep such a disaster in mind.\n"They need to make sure this does not happen again," she said. "I want the New Orleans to be around to share with my children."\nRhett Kleinschmidt, a Louisiana native and a junior football player for IU, said he thinks the city will come back, no matter how bad things may get. \n"For those people who are Saints fans, bad news is something you become accustomed to -- the city will come back no matter how long it takes," Kleinschmidt said. "However, it may be the first time in a long time Mardi Gras doesn't happen."\nNagin, whose pre-hurricane evacuation order got most of his city of a half a million out of harm's way, estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people remained, and said that 14,000 to 15,000 a day could be evacuated in ensuing convoys.\n"We have to," Nagin said. "It's not living conditions."\nIn addition to the Astrodome solution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks and so-called floating dormitories.\nIn Washington, the Bush administration decided to release crude oil from the federal petroleum reserves after Katrina knocked out 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's output. But because of the disruptions and damage to the refineries, gasoline prices surged above $3 a gallon in many parts of the country.\nIDS reporter Nick O'Neill contributed to this report. He can be reached at cnoneill@indiana.edu.