The impact of Hurricane Katrina was felt far and wide on Monday and Tuesday as the monster storm hit the Gulf Coast tearing through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with a vengeance, and leaving in its wake homes and business destroyed by high winds and flooded by heavy rains. Katrina also spawned tornadoes and widespread thunderstorms, which dumped copious amounts of rain across the entire region.
Weakley County
     In Weakley County, Weakley County Municipal Electric System Director Faron Collins said, “We actually started about 1 o’clock this morning. And between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., we had at least half of the county without power, which is about 10,000 people. It ranged all the way from Bradford to South Fulton, Gleason, Dresden, and just about every part of our county was hit at one time. We got it down to about 30 percent by 6 a.m. this morning. And by dark, we should have everybody back on in the county.”
     As far as structural damage, E-911 Director Beth Forrester said, “The only things that we’ve had reported have been trees and tree limbs in the roads. And that’s just been spread throughout the county mostly. I think the tree limbs are pretty much already cleared from the roads by now, because, it started in some time after midnight.” She stated that both county and municipal crews across the county have put in a lot of hours clearing all of the debris from the roads. “We haven’t had any structural damage reported,” Forrester said. “We’re fortunate.”
     Weakley County Highway Department Supervisor Kermit Hopper reported that county highway crews have been out since 1:30 a.m. Tuesday clearing trees and limbs from county roads. He stated that most of the problems his department faced involved downed trees, which he noted were scattered all over the county, with no discernable pattern. He explained that while there were no road closings due to flooding, there were some incidents where roads were temporarily blocked until they could be cleared of fallen debris. “We’ve got one road now that we’re waiting for the electric company to come and get it out of the power lines,” Hopper added. “But we haven’t had any water damage to speak of. We’ve been blessed.” Hopper stated that he talked to Gibson County officials and learned that their situation was pretty much the same as in Weakley County. “There was no certain pattern, but a lot of big trees were falling this time more so, it seemed like, than little ones.”
Impact Statewide
     While West Tennessee didn’t have to contend with hurricane force winds, it did experience widespread thunderstorms with wind gusts reported as high as 60 m.p.h. south of Interstate 40, and 50 m.p.h. in Northwest Tennessee, and sustained winds of around 30 m.p.h. The winds generated by these storms felled trees and limbs, which in turn knocked down power lines and caused power outages. Also, lightning damaged power stations, which added to the loss of electrical power in the region. And heavy downpours resulted in flooding in low-lying areas as the storm continued to make its way up through Tennessee and up the Ohio Valley.
     Hurricane Katrina, which was downgraded to a tropical storm before it hit Tennessee overnight, knocked out electricity to about 75,000 customers in the state’s two largest cities on Tuesday. In Memphis and Shelby County, there were more than 70,000 customers without power Tuesday. There were also approximately 4,800 customers in the Nashville area without power, as well as scattered power outages in several counties in southwestern Tennessee and throughout the rest of the state.
     However, on a more positive note, there were no reports of serious flooding or property damage. And although tornado watches were in effect for East Tennessee through Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service has received no reports of tornado sightings or touchdowns. And there were no major road closures reported.
     Hotels in Memphis, Nashville, Jackson and other areas in West and Middle Tennessee were booked Monday and Tuesday by residents from Mississippi and Louisiana, who sought safe haven from the storm.
     The most severe damage was reported in Tipton County, where a front porch was ripped off a home near Covington. Also, flooding was reported near Bolivar and Grand Junction in Hardeman County and south of Lexington in Henderson County.
Regional Impact
     After traveling across southern Florida last week as a Category 1 Hurricane and spending the weekend at sea, Katrina struck the Gulf Coast early Monday morning as a Category 4 hurricane with 145-mph winds and blinding rain.  By 2 p.m., Katrina, which was rapidly weakening, was centered about 20 miles southwest of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, moving northward at about 19 mph. Its winds had dropped to about 95 mph, making it a Category 1 storm. The storm was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi, moving north at 16 m.p.h.
     Early Tuesday morning, emergency officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama surveyed the damage inflicted along the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, and discovered widespread death and destruction left in the path of the huge storm, which could be the most expensive storm ever to hit the United States. With over two million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle without power, many evacuees may not be allowed back to their homes for several days or even weeks, as thousands of utility crews work long hours to restore power. And authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. In the meantime, 10 major hospitals in New Orleans were running on emergency backup power.
     Across the Gulf Coast, people were rescued as they clung to rooftops, hundreds of trees were uprooted and sailboats were flung about like toys.
      The federal government began rushing supplies and the American Red Cross said it would be mobilizing its largest response ever once officials let teams in. The financial loss in insurance claims from Katrina is estimated as high as $26 billion. That would make Katrina more expensive than the previous record-setting storm, Hurricane Andrew, which caused some $21 billion in insured losses in 1992 to property in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
Florida
     Katrina, which hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday, was blamed for 11 deaths. It left miles of streets and homes flooded and knocked out power to 1.45 million customers. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.
Mississippi
     In Mississippi, the human costs are considerable. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said the death toll in Harrison County alone could reach as high as 80 fatalities, and hundreds of victims are still awaiting rescue. Officials report that approximately 50 people had died in Harrison County, with some 30 dead when a beachside apartment collapsed in Biloxi.
     Additionally, tens of thousands of homes were flooded or destroyed by the storm, and apartment complexes were wiped clean. Katrina even leveled houses that withstood Hurricane Camille, which killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1969.
     A least five casinos are out of commission in Biloxi. The Hard Rock Cafe and Beau Rivage Resort and Casino were severely damaged. The bottom floors of a condominium were all but washed away. All that remained of one hotel was the toilets. Katrina’s surge also demolished major bridges along the coast. The storm swept sailboats onto city streets and into buildings in Gulfport and obliterated hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community landmarks and condominiums.
     A storm surge of more than 20 feet was recorded in Mississippi, where windows of a major hospital were blown out and billboards were ripped to shreds. In some areas, authorities pulled stranded homeowners from roofs or rescued them from attics, where they had fled to escape the rising water.
     At the Hancock County courthouse, a foot of water swamped the emergency operations center, which sits 30 feet above sea level, and the back of the courthouse collapsed.
     Approximately 75 percent of the buildings in Gulfport, Mississippi suffered major roof damage.
     Emergency officials report that they have not been able to reach some of the hardest-hit areas to determine the number of injuries or deaths. Officials across the region sent water rescue teams out and stood ready to dispense ice, water and meals to hurricane-stricken residents.
Louisiana
     In Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and made a slight turn to the right before coming ashore Monday at 6:10 a.m. CDT near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras.
     New Orleans, which is up to 10 feet below sea level in spots and relies on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry from the Mississippi River on one side and Lake Pontchartrain on the other, missed the full impact of the storm when Katrina passed just to the east of the city as it moved inland. Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the hurricane center, estimated that the highest winds in New Orleans were about 100 m.p.h.
     In the aftermath of the storm, New Orleans was described by some as “a giant lake.”
     Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said her office had reports of as many 20 building collapses in New Orleans, and scores of residents stranded in attics or on rooftops.  Structural damage included: mangled street signs, crumbled brick walls in the French Quarter, fallen trees on streetcar tracks, high-rise buildings with most of their windows blown out, and much more. Approximately 80 percent of the city is under water; and in some sections, the water is as deep as 20 feet, which left many of New Orleans’ residents stranded on rooftops. During the night, more residents had to be evacuated when two separate levee were breached, sending a tumultuous sea of water coursing through city streets. Additionally, some hospital patients were airlifted to the Superdome as a precaution. Also, the French Quarter, which had been relatively dry, began filling with water by 4 a.m. Tuesday, and by 8 a.m., some streets were under several inches of water. Other downtown streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 to 1½ feet of water. Water was knee-deep around the Superdome. And Canal Street was literally a canal. A major bridge was also wiped out. And in St. Bernard Parish just east of New Orleans alone, 40,000 homes were under water.
     On the south shore of Lake Ponchartrain, entire neighborhoods of one-story homes were flooded up to the rooflines. The Interstate 10 off-ramps nearby looked like boat ramps amid the white-capping waves. Garbage cans and tires bobbed in the water.
     The National Guard was also called in to help evacuate storm victims to safe locations. Although no deaths have been officially confirmed in Louisiana, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told the news media that many reports were coming from rescuers about bodies floating in high waters that covered most of the city.
     Approximately 9,000 refugees spent their second night inside the New Orleans’ Superdome with no power for air conditioning and soggy conditions due to roof leaks.
Besides everything else, most of the city’s drinking water has been contaminated and electrical power could be out for up to six weeks.
     New Orleans has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since Betsy in 1965, when an 8- to 10-foot storm surge submerged parts of the city in seven feet of water. Betsy, a Category 3 storm, was blamed for 74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
Alabama
     In Alabama, the storm surge knocked an oil-drilling platform, which was in port for repairs, free from its moorings in Mobile, wedging it under a bridge over the Mobile River. Muddy six-foot waves crashed into the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, flooding stately, antebellum mansions and littering them with oak branches. Also, exploding electrical transformers were commonplace.
     At least two highway deaths in Alabama were blamed on the storm, and an untold number of others were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods.
Gas Price Hikes
     Crude oil futures spiked to more than $70 a barrel in Singapore for the first time Monday as Katrina targeted an area crucial to the country’s energy infrastructure, but the price had slipped back to $68.95 by midday in Europe. The approaching storm forced the shutdown of an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity.
     Some experts estimate possible gas price increases of another 25 cents per gallon, due to a reduction in the nation’s oil refining capacity caused by Hurricane Katrina, which has forced the shutdown of oil refineries and platforms along the nation’s Gulf Coast. With the average price for regular gasoline in the region currently at $2.49, this could jack it up to $2.74 per gallon.
Forecast
     West Tennessee was placed under an inland tropical storm watch with a wind advisory and flood watch from 7 p.m. Monday night until 1 p.m. Tuesday, but the tropical storm warning was dropped for most Tennessee counties around 4 a.m. when conditions improved somewhat. The prediction held true with heavy rains and windy conditions throughout most of the night. The region also had overcast skies and highs in the upper 70s.
     As of press-time, rain and breezy conditions with a west-by-northwest wind between 15 and 20 m.p.h. was forecast for Tuesday night with lows in the mid 60s. But partly cloudy skies with high temperatures in the upper 80s were predicted for Wednesday and the remainder of the week.

     The Weakley County Economic Development Board settled on the size and estimated cost of a speculative building to be constructed on 25 acres of land recently donated by the city of Dresden. A property committee report calling for a 100,000 sq. ft. building at a cost of approximately $1.8 million was approved at the monthly board meeting last week.
     The group continues to explore financing strategies to fund the building, having met with USDA Rural Development and Tennessee Valley Authority representatives. Various available loan and grant programs and private funding through local banks also were reviewed. As established, the board does not have authority to borrow money and board members discussed the possibility of contracting with other county entities with such authority to serve as a conduit for the financing.
     John Clark, chairman of the WCED Board’s budget and finance committee, will explore alternatives used by other communities and counties and make a recommendation for spec building funding.

(Read the rest of this story in this week's print edition of the Dresden Enterprise.)