Hurricane Katrina rocks New Orleans
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-30 07:29

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said about 115 people were stranded on rooftops but rescue teams were not being sent until winds subsided. She said access routes to New Orleans would be shut down and told the hundreds of thousands of people who evacuated to stay away.

"I can't say that I have a sense we escaped the worst," she said. "We have a tough, tough people. We party hard, we work hard ... we know we can get through this."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he'd had reports that more than 20 buildings were collapsing in the city.

Katrina knocked out electricity to about 670,000 power company customers, or about 1.3 million people, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, utility companies said. That figure included more than 300,000 customers of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.

By 2 p.m. CDT (1900 GMT) Katrina's winds had decreased to 95 mph (153 kph), a Category 1 storm, and its center was about 20 miles west-southwest of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, after it hammered the Mississippi coastal tourist havens of Biloxi and Gulfport.

"It came in on Mississippi like a ton of bricks. It's a terrible storm," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said.

Asked about his worst fear, Barbour said: "That there are a lot of dead people out there.

A Weather Channel producer in Gulfport, Mississippi, estimated a 20-foot (6-meter) storm surge hit the area, sweeping away cars in the parking lot of a retirement home and said he was standing in about 6 inches of water on the second floor of the building.

The National Hurricane Center had said the exposed Mississippi coastline could expect 15- to 20-foot (4.5- to 6-meter) storm surges.

President George W. Bush on Monday approved "major disaster declarations" for the states of Louisiana and Mississippi.

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