Vacation Ends, and Crisis Management Begins

"Our citizens must understand this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and to distribute gasoline," Bush cautioned in the Rose Garden, shortly after television pictures showed long lines at Atlanta gas stations charging as much as $5 per gallon.

But if Bush will be judged by his response in the weeks ahead, aides acknowledged that he is constrained by limited options. He decided Wednesday to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which could hold down the increase in gas prices marginally, but other than monitoring for price gouging, a senior White House official said, there is little else Bush can do.

The president has more levers to pull to help hurricane victims, and he is mindful of the lessons from his father's administration when it was criticized in 1992 for responding too slowly to Hurricane Andrew in Florida. Bush plans to visit the Gulf Coast on Friday or Saturday to inspect the damage.

The president used his trip back from Texas to get a sneak preview, observing the arc of devastation from aboard Air Force One en route to Washington. Col. Mark Tillman, the chief pilot, took the plane down from its cruising altitude of 29,000 feet and skimmed just 1,700 feet above the ground at one point.

"It's devastating," Bush told aides as he flew over New Orleans. "It's got to be doubly devastating on the ground."

From the air, New Orleans appeared almost completely washed out, with portions still submerged and virtually no cars on the roads that were still above water, a haunting view of a city with virtually no visible signs of habitation. Bush noticed the Superdome with part of the skin of its roof peeled back and saw a residential neighborhood where the water reached all the way up to, and even above, the roofs of houses. As Bush watched, a Coast Guard helicopter hovered so low that its rotor blades whipped up the water below; it appeared the helicopter might have been in the midst of a rescue.

Heading east to the city's outskirts and beyond, he saw that some suburban and rural communities were virtually obliterated. Acres and acres of forest were leveled, the trees flattened as if stepped on. An amusement park appeared to be a model in a bathtub, the roller coaster emerging from the water.

As he reached Mississippi, Bush saw the other most devastated area around the towns of Waveland and Pass Christian, where there was not much water but many miles of wooden houses smashed into scrap lumber as far as the eye could see. "It's totally wiped out," Bush said.

For long stretches of the coast, no building appeared to be standing, and those few that were showed signs of severe damage. The president pointed out a church still standing while all the houses around it were destroyed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. In Gulfport and Biloxi, casinos sat partially smashed.

"There wasn't a whole lot of conversation going on," McClellan said. "I think it's very sobering to see from the air. And I think at some points you're just kind of shaking your head in disbelief to see the destruction that has been done by the hurricane."

Staff writer Jim VandeHei in Washington contributed to this report.