Storm Thrashes Gulf Coast

And no one was claiming victory over Katrina or telling hundreds of thousands of people who evacuated the city that the danger was past. "The roads are flooded, there is no electricity, the phones are down, there is no food or water," Blanco said. "I have ordered the Louisiana State Police to block reentry to affected areas. Wherever you live, it is still too dangerous for people to return home."

Blanco said the storm had breached a 50-inch New Orleans water main, rendering the city's water undrinkable in all but a few neighborhoods. She said eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the city had been "devastated by floodwaters and high winds."

Late Monday, the extent of damage to New Orleans could still only be guessed at. Its proudest downtown high-rises were scarred by scores of broken windows. Curtains and blinds billowed outward while wind and rain poured into hotel rooms and offices inside.

"We prayed and sang and read the Word -- and God was with us," said Jo Hardeman, 53, a tourist from Nashville, who was unable to get out of the city because of the closed airport and was forced to spend the hurricane inside the Fairmont Hotel.

Katrina peeled away half of the golden metal roof fabric covering the Superdome, opening two holes in its skin. That allowed water to fall 19 stories, sprinkling 9,000 refugees sweltering without air conditioning in the shelter below.

New Orleans's graceful avenues were littered with everything from downed trees to shattered glass. St. Bernard Parish reportedly had 40,000 flooded homes.

Mississippi may have fared even worse. "Let me tell you something, folks: I've been out there. It's complete devastation," Gulfport Fire Chief Pat Sullivan told AP.

Storm surges as high as 28 feet were reported in the state, a Knight-Ridder Newspapers dispatch said. Harrison County's command post had to be moved from the Gulfport courthouse because of rising water.

Elsewhere along the Mississippi coast, the storm pushed water up to the second floor of homes, flooded floating casinos near Biloxi, uprooted hundreds of trees and flung sailboats across a highway, the AP said.

In Alabama, Katrina's arrival was marked by the flash and crackle of exploding transformers. The hurricane toppled huge oak branches on Mobile's waterfront and broke apart an oil-drilling platform, the AP said. Muddy six-foot waves crashed into the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, flooding stately, antebellum mansions and littering them with oak branches.

The hurricane all but paralyzed energy production all along the coast, one of the nation's oil-and-gas hubs. It battered refineries, offshore oil platforms and pipelines, raising fears that already high oil prices could reach debilitating heights in coming weeks.

More than 700 oil platforms had been evacuated by late Monday. Energy companies warned they would need several days to assess damage to major facilities. Electronic trading of crude oil rose nearly $5 Monday to peak at a record $70.80 a barrel.