Gulf Region Infrastructure Slowly Revives

But Damage to Key Roads, Ports, Telecommunication Services and Energy Sources Remains

Ten days after Hurricane Katrina shut down a major nexus of American commerce, many choked shipping lanes have been reopened, gasoline pipelines restored to service, and goods rerouted as businesses try to limit the economic fallout of the storm.

But key parts of the Gulf Coast's transportation systems, communications and energy production remain out of service for the foreseeable future. And yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the hurricane may slow U.S. economic growth by up to 1 percentage point over the rest of the year.

Katrina's damage to the physical infrastructure that keeps the regional economy going remains immense. Some 57 percent less oil than normal was pumped from the Gulf yesterday, and natural gas output is down 40 percent. Major highways in and around New Orleans are still closed, as is a 100-mile stretch of railroad. The Port of New Orleans remains shut down, and other nearby ports are working at limited capacity. More than 1 million telephone lines and about 30 percent of cell phone towers in the affected region remain out of service. And yesterday, more than 503,000 business and residential customers in Louisiana were still without electricity.

However, many businesses are finding ways around these problems, underscoring the resilience and nimbleness of the U.S. economy's modern supply and distribution networks.

Pilot Air Freight Corp., a Pennsylvania company that does shipping and logistics for companies worldwide, has routed trucks around the affected areas. It even managed to get trucks into New Orleans on Saturday to ship a load of industrial materials to Brussels, despite not having access to its shipping facility at the city's airport.

"What surprised me in this disaster is how well the system adapts," said Richard Phillips Jr., vice chairman of Pilot. "It's a little bit like how if you take one connection out of the Internet, it works around the problem and information still gets through."

In the boot-heel region of Missouri, the southernmost tip of the state, the corn harvest has begun. But prices are down, and, with the Louisiana ports shipping only 10 percent as much grain overseas as normal, farmers worry they will have to leave their crops to rot in the fields, said Kelly Smith, director of marketing and commodities of the Missouri Farm Bureau.

Downriver, barge operators are more sanguine.

"Cargo is moving," said Bob Wooten, a vice president and co-owner of Weber Marine Inc., which services shippers and tows barges on the Mississippi River 65 miles upstream of New Orleans. He said that his company has already salvaged a few barges that washed ashore in the hurricane and that nearby grain elevators are operating or will soon. His own company is working at 80 percent of capacity, largely because many of his employees are unreachable, presumably evacuated.

"It's been a lot of work, but I'm really proud of our people," Wooten said. "But I hope I never see another can of beanie weenies in my life. I've been living off the things for the last two weeks."

And Oreck Direct LLC, a vacuum cleaner company with headquarters in New Orleans and a manufacturing plant near Gulfport, Miss., is set to resume production after executives gathered in temporary offices in Dallas and delivered 75 mobile homes, food, water, and generators to their plant in Mississippi. Suppliers agreed to stockpile parts, and United Parcel Service Inc. took over distribution tasks that normally would be handled in-house.

"It's pretty amazing that a business can be virtually shut down and be back up and running almost fully in 10 days," said chief executive Tom Oreck.