AP - Mon Aug 29, 9:46 AM ET Waves crash against a boat washed onto Highway 80 as Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast Monday, Aug. 29, 2005 in Gulfport, Miss. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

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Katrina will hurt some oil earnings

By Ben Berkowitz
31 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina could wreak havoc on the earnings of major oil companies due to production cuts and property damage in the Gulf of Mexico, but insurance will cover most if not all of the lost profits, according to analysts.

Oil companies that do not operate in the Gulf will benefit because they can keep pumping at high prices without interruption, the analysts said.

In pre-market trading, a number of oil- and gas-linked stocks shot higher on the prospect of oil higher prices, among them El Paso Corp. (NYSE:EP - news), Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE:CHK - news), Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE:VLO - news) and Halliburton Co.(NYSE:HAL - news).

As of early Monday morning, nearly half of the oil production in the Gulf had been shut in, and that proportion was expected to rise. About a quarter of U.S. domestic oil and gas output comes from the Gulf.

Virtually every major company in the industry was expected to feel the impact of Katrina to one degree or another, said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst for Oppenheimer & Co.

"It is significantly bigger than Ivan," he said, referring to a hurricane that caused extensive damage in the Gulf in 2004. "Ivan wreaked havoc in the oil and gas industry. Some of the damage caused by Ivan still has not been fully repaired."

As of Monday, companies with significant shut-in Gulf production included Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM - news), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX - news), Total (TOTF.PA) and BP (BP.L).

"This did go through the heart of where probably 500 platforms exist in the Gulf," said Brad Beago, an analyst at Calyon Securities.

"The big impact of Hurricane Ivan was something that people didn't see initially -- these undersea mudslides that actually severed some pipelines," he said. "There may be a tertiary impact that we can't even see at this point."

Oppenheimer's Gheit said some of the most immediate impact from Katrina would come from refinery closures in areas impacted by the hurricane, given that spare U.S. refining capacity was almost nil in the first place.

"Obviously, what is really down the line is the damage, and it could be hundreds of millions if not billions (of dollars) in infrastructure damage," Gheit said.

INSURED LOSSES

But he said all of those losses would be insured, so the industry would end up recovering in the longer term what it loses in the short term -- ironically, at the same $70-plus oil prices caused by the shutdowns.

Oil companies with no Gulf exposure, which can take advantage of high oil prices without recovery costs, include Amerada Hess Corp. (NYSE:AHC - news), Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:OXY - news), Burlington Resources Inc. (NYSE:BR - news), XTO Energy Inc. (NYSE:XTO - news), Comstock Resources Inc. (NYSE:CRK - news), EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE:EOG - news) and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (NYSE:COG - news), Gheit said.

"Basically, these companies are going to be printing money at will," he said.

Calyon's Beago said natural gas companies could benefit as well by hedging their future production into the spike in prices. Natural gas futures hit a record high of $12.07 per million British thermal units on Monday.

UTILITIES AT RISK

Besides oil and gas companies, electric utilities could take a hit due to the damage to their infrastructure from Katrina and the costs they will incur trying to repair their systems.

Three days after Katrina hit Florida, FPL Group Inc. (NYSE:FPL - news) still has more than 300,000 customers without power, the company said on Monday. The company has brought in more than 14,000 people to help complete the work this week.

Entergy Corp. (NYSE:ETR - news) was also in focus, as the company is the major utility serving the New Orleans area being threatened by Katrina


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050829/bs_nm/energy_katrina_stocks_dc

Hurricane Katrina Rips La., Miss. Coasts
AP - 40 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina plowed into this below-sea-level city Monday with howling, 145-mph winds and blinding rain that ripped away pieces of the roof of the Superdome, knocked out power and flooded some homes to the ceilings. Katrina weakened overnight to a Category 4 storm and turned slightly eastward before hitting land about 6:10 a.m. CDT east of Grand Isle near the bayou town of Buras, providing some hope that this vulnerable city would be spared the storm's full fury.

AP - Mon Aug 29,12:40 PM ET Heavy floodwaters block many of the roadways in and around New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina pounds the area on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

National Guard: Enough GIs for Storm Duty

2 hours, 51 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - Though thousands of National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi are serving in Iraq, officials say more than enough personnel were available for disaster duty Monday as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.

"Only about half of available forces are mobilized in Louisiana and forces are available from neighboring states if needed," said Lt. Col. Mike Milord, a spokesman at National Guard headquarters outside Washington.

Some 3,500 Army National Guardsmen from Louisiana were deployed to help hurricane victims and another 3,000 were on standby.

About 3,000 members of Louisiana's 256th Combat Brigade already are in Iraq. Six members were killed by a bomb on Jan. 6 and another two died in a blast four days later.

In Mississippi, the Guard had 853 troops on hurricane duty, preparing to remove debris and provide security, Milord reported, a small slice of the more than 7,000 available National Guard troops in the state's ground and air components.

Some 780 Guard members from Florida are helping residents recover from the hurricane and 130 Guard members are on duty in Alabama.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050829/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard

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AP - Mon Aug 29,10:49 AM ET Debris from a fallen building covers several buildings in downtown New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina battered the Louisiana Coast on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Katrina rips Gulf Coast


Storm moves into Mississippi after leaving New Orleans flooded


AP - Mon Aug 29, 3:04 PM ET Eric Leath, left, and Max Haines walk through the flooded streets of Ponite Clear, Ala., Monday Aug. 29, 2005. Haines, the assistant harbor master at the Marriott Grand Hotel, was checking on boats in the harbor. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)


http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

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AP - Mon Aug 29,11:39 AM ET The roof of the Louisiana Superdome is shredded by strong winds from Hurricane Katrina as it batters New Orleans, Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

AFP/NOAA-HO - Mon Aug 29, 3:33 PM ET
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite image shows Hurricane Katrina as she moves up into the US Gulf states. Katrina pounded the US Gulf coast with rare fury, ripping off roofs, downing power lines and flooding New Orleans neighborhoods, where residents awaited rescue on rooftops.(AFP/NOAA-HO)



Reuters - Mon Aug 29, 5:44 PM ET
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite image of Hurricane Katrina taken as the storm continued to move farther inland after it came ashore along the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. Katrina ripped into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, battering the historic jazz city New Orleans, swamping resort towns and lowlands with a crushing surge of seawater and stranding people on rooftops. REUTERS/NOAA/Handout

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AP - Mon Aug 29, 7:58 PM ET The roof of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans was shredded by strong winds of Hurricane Katrina as it battered the Crescent City on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

AP - Mon Aug 29, 7:46 PM ET The entire North side of the Hyatt Hotel in New Orleans was blown when Hurricane Katrina devastated the area on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Reuters - Mon Aug 29, 9:14 PM ET A worker from the Gulfport Oceanarium checks on the well-being two dolphins in the swimming pool at a hotel while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passes near Gulfport, Mississippi August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina ripped into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, stranding people on rooftops as it pummeled the historic jazz city New Orleans with 100 mph (160 kph) winds and swamped Mississippi resort towns and lowlands with a crushing surge of seawater.

AFP - Mon Aug 29, 7:00 PM ET Towboat and shipyard workers John (L) and Michelle Welborn (C) walk with Robert Rishel (R) away from the Mobile Bay after an oil rig (background) tore free of its moorings as Hurricane Katrina lashed the Alabama coast before surging downriver and smashing into a suspension bridge in Mobile.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

suspension bridge in Mobile

AP - Mon Aug 29, 6:45 PM ET Bryan Vernon and Dorthy Bell are rescued from their rooftop after Hurricane Katrina hit, causing flooding in their New Orleans neighborhood, Monday Morning, Aug. 29, 2005. Officials called for a mandatory evacuation of the city, but many residents remained in the city. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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http://www.voanews.com/vietnamese/2005-08-30-voa2.cfm

Katrina May Have Killed 80 in Miss. County

AP - 41 minutes ago

GULFPORT, Miss. - As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf Coast on Tuesday, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The governor said the death toll in one Mississippi county alone could be as high as 80. "The devastation down there is just enormous," Gov. Haley Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show, the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 145 mph.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

AP - Tue Aug 30, 6:00 AM ET This NOAA satellite image taken Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 at 3:45 a.m. EDT shows weakening Tropical Storm Katrina over Tennessee and Kentucky. The storm will continue to move northward the next couple of days. A thick layer of clouds over the Northeast is associated with moderate to heavy rain. (AP Photo/Weather Underground)

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/ts/080304tropicalweathe/im:/050830/480/ny208301000;_ylt=Alyz9L4lF20xGgsyNL0Xi1ZiWscF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3dmhrOGVvBHNlYwNzc20-

Water Continues to Rise in New Orleans

AP - 1 hour, 15 minutes ago

GULFPORT, Miss. - Rescuers in boats and helicopters struggled to reach hundreds of wet and bedraggled victims of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast on Tuesday, while New Orleans slipped deeper into crisis as water began rising in the streets because of a levee break. The magnitude of the disaster - and the death toll in particular - became clearer with every tale of misery. Mississippi's governor said the number of dead in one county alone could be as high as 80

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AFP/Getty Images - Tue Aug 30, 7:03 PM ET People walk through high water in front of the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Hundreds of rescuers rushed to the southern US states ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, as aid organizations urged Americans to open up their wallets to help victims of the deadly storm.(AFP/Getty Images/Mark Wilson) Email Photo Print Photo

Reuters - Tue Aug 30, 6:45 PM ET
An aerial view of the devastation caused by high winds and heavy flooding in the greater New Orleans area following Hurricane Katrina in Baton Rouge, Louisiana August 30, 2005. Floodwaters engulfed much of New Orleans on Tuesday as officials feared a steep death toll and planned to evacuate thousands remaining in shelters after the historic city's defenses were breached by Hurricane Katrina. REUTERS/Vincent Laforet/Pool

AFP - Tue Aug 30, 6:32 PM ET The Interstate-90 bridge over St. Louis Bay in Pass Christian, Mississippi. Fresh floods, fires and looting rode in the destructive wake of Hurricane Katrina, deepening a humanitarian crisis that left hundreds feared dead and sections of New Orleans submerged to the rooftops.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

The Interstate-90 bridge over St. Louis Bay

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=images&imgsz=all&imgc=&vf=all&va=st+louis+bay+bridge&fr=FP-tab-web-t-287&ei=UTF-8

AFP/Pool - Tue Aug 30, 7:16 PM ET Water spills over a levee along the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. Fresh floods, fires and looting rode in the destructive wake of Hurricane Katrina, deepening a humanitarian crisis that left hundreds feared dead and sections of New Orleans submerged to the rooftops.The(AFP/Pool/Vincent Laforet)

AP - Tue Aug 30, 8:04 PM ET A bridge on Highway 90 is shown Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 after it was hit by Hurricane Katrina Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 in Biloxi, Miss. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Katrina Swamps Entire La. Neighborhoods
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans on Monday, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi's beachfront casinos and blowing out windows in hospitals, hotels and high-rises.

For New Orleans — a dangerously vulnerable city because it sits mostly below sea level in a bowl-shaped depression — it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared.

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AP - Mon Aug 29, 6:38 PM ET Flooding takes place after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Monday Morning, Aug. 29, 2005. Officials called for a mandatory evacuation of the city, but many resident remained in the city. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050830/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina_37

Katrina Floods Gulf States, Killing 55

By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 18 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans on Monday, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi's beachfront casinos and killing at least 55 people.

Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said 50 people were killed by Katrina in his county, with the bulk of the deaths at an apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.

For New Orleans — a dangerously vulnerable city because it sits mostly below sea level in a bowl-shaped depression — it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared.

But it was plenty bad, in New Orleans and elsewhere along the coast, where scores people had to be rescued from rooftops and attics as the floodwaters rose around them. An untold number of other people were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods, many of which could not be reached by rescuers because of high water.

"Some of them, it was their last night on Earth," Terry Ebbert, chief of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored orders to evacuate the city of 480,000 over the weekend. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson."

"We pray that the loss of life is very limited, but we fear that is not the case," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

Katrina knocked out power to more than a million people from Louisiana to the Florida's Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Ten major hospitals in New Orleans were running on emergency backup power.

The federal government began rushing baby formula, communications equipment, generators, water and ice into hard-hit areas, along with doctors, nurses and first-aid supplies. The Pentagon sent experts to help with search-and-rescue operations.

Katrina was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi, moving north at 21 mph. Winds were still a dangerous 65 mph.

Forecasters said that as the storm moves north through the nation's midsection over the next few days, it may spawn tornadoes over the Southeast and swamp the Gulf Coast and the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys with a potentially ruinous 8 inches or more of rain.

Oil refiners said damage to their equipment in the Gulf region appeared to be minimal, and oil prices dropped back from the day's highs above $70 a barrel. But the refiners were still assessing the damage, and the Bush administration said it would consider releasing oil from the nation's emergency stockpile if necessary.

Katrina had menaced the Gulf Coast over the weekend as a 175-mph, Category 5 monster, the most powerful ranking on the scale. But it weakened to a Category 4 and made a slight right-hand turn just become it came ashore around daybreak near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras, passing just east of New Orleans on a path that spared the Big Easy — and its fabled French Quarter — from its full fury.

In nearby coastal St. Bernard Parish, Katrina's storm surge swamped an estimated 40,000 homes. In a particularly low-lying neighborhood on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, a levee along a canal gave way and forced dozens of residents to flee or scramble to the roofs when water rose to their gutters. Across the region, the fierce winds of Katrina blew out windows in hospitals, hotels and high-rises.

"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It just kept rising and rising and rising," said Bryan Vernon, who spent three hours on his roof, screaming over howling winds for someone to save him and his fiancee.

Across a street that had turned into a river bobbing with garbage cans, trash and old tires, a woman leaned from the second-story window of a brick home and pleaded to be rescued.

"There are three kids in here," the woman said. "Can you help us?"

Blanco said 200 people have been rescued in boats from rooftops, attics and other locations around the New Orleans area, a scene playing out in Mississippi as well. In some cases, rescuers are sawing through roofs to get to people in attics, and other stranded residents "are swimming to our boats," the governor said. In one dramatic resuce, a person was plucked from a roof by a helicopter.

A fire later tore through a yacht club near Lake Pontchartrain.

Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was subjected to both Katrina's harshest winds and highest recorded storm surges — 22 feet. The storm pushed water up to the second floor of homes, flooded floating casinos, uprooted hundreds of trees and flung sailboats across a highway.

"Let me tell you something, folks: I've been out there. It's complete devastation," said Gulfport, Miss., Fire Chief Pat Sullivan.

In Gulfport, young children clung to one another in a small blue boat as neighbors shuffled children and elderly residents out of a flooded neighborhood.

"Everything is flooded. Roofs are off and everything," said Shun Howell, 25, who was trying to leave with her 5-year-old son. "Everything is ruined."

In some cases, debris was stacked 4 to 5 feet, covering cars. Houses were washed from their foundations.

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, sending a piece slamming into a major bridge.

Muddy six-foot waves crashed into the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, flooding stately, antebellum mansions and littering them with oak branches.

"There are lots of homes through here worth a million dollars. At least they were yesterday," said a shirtless Fred Wright. "I've been here 25 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen the water."

It was Katrina's second blow: The hurricane hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday and was blamed for 11 deaths. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.

Calling it a once-in-a-lifetime storm, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had issued a mandatory evacuation order as Katrina drew near. But the doomsday vision of hurricane waters spilling over levees and swamping the city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies never materialized.

Forecasters said New Orleans — which has not been hit directly by a major storm since Category 3 Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965 — got lucky again.

"The real important issue here is that when it got to the metropolitan area, it was weaker," said National Hurricane Center deputy director Ed Rappaport, who estimated the highest winds in New Orleans were 100 mph.

A giant water main broke in New Orleans, making it unsafe to drink the city's water without first boiling it. And police made several arrests for looting.

At New Orleans' Superdome, home to 9,000 storm refugees, the wind ripped pieces of metal from the roof, leaving two holes that let water drip in. A power outage also knocked out the air conditioning, and the storm refugees sweltered in the heat.

Katrina also shattered scores of windows in high-rise office buildings and on five floors of the Charity Hospital, forcing patients to be moved to lower levels. White curtains that had been sucked out of the shattered windows of a hotel became tangled in treetops.

In the French Quarter, made up of Napoleonic-era buildings with wrought-iron balconies, the damage was relatively light.

On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand.

At the hotel Le Richelieu, the winds blew open sets of balcony French doors shortly after dawn. Seventy-three-year-old Josephine Elow pressed her weight against the broken doors as a hotel employee tried to secure them.

"It's not life-threatening," she said as rainwater dripped from her face. "God's got our back."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina

Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors

AP - 54 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city. Two levees broke and sent water coursing into the streets of the Big Easy a full day after New Orleans appeared to have escaped widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 80 percent of the below-sea-level city was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes swamped.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

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AP - Tue Aug 30,10:13 PM ET Bay St. Louis Emergency Management Agency volunteer crews rescue the Taylor family from the roof of their suburban, which became trapped on US 90 due to flooding during Hurricane Katrina on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (AP Photo/Ben Sklar)

Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors

AP - 15 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

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Reuters - Wed Aug 31,12:11 AM ET A section of the bridge connecting Ocean Springs with Biloxi is wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Mississippi August 30, 2005. Army engineers raced to staunch rising floodwaters submerging historic New Orleans as helicopters plucked frantic survivors from rooftops and hundreds were feared dead on Tuesday after Hurricane Katrina tore across the U.S. Gulf Coast. REUTERS/Marc Serota

Reuters - Wed Aug 31, 12:20 AM ET

A section of the bridge connecting Ocean Springs with Biloxi is wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Mississippi August 30, 2005.

Reuters - Wed Aug 31, 12:14 AM ET
An oil refinery is submerged in water in Codin, Alabama, August 30, 2005. Oil prices scrambled back towards their fresh high above $70 on Wednesday as dealers feared a sharp squeeze on fuel supplies after Hurricane Katrina shut down vital U.S. Gulf Coast refineries and offshore production platforms. REUTERS/Marc Serota

Officials rescue living, count dead after Katrina

Reuters - 1 hour, 22 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Overwhelmed authorities struggled to rescue the living and count the dead on Wednesday amid catastrophic destruction left in the path of powerful Hurricane Katrina. Looters ran wild in New Orleans, while officials tried to plug a leaking levee that was allowing lake water to pour into the city. The U.S. Energy Department said it would release oil from the country's strategic reserve to offset losses in the Gulf of Mexico, where the storm had shut down production and driven prices higher.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms

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AFP - Wed Aug 31, 9:03 AM ET The Shell Oil refinery appears shut down to a minimum in Pascagoula, Mississippi, August 30, 2005, after the high winds and waves of Hurricane Kartrina. Oil prices have risen, with New York's main crude contract above 70 dollars on concerns that refineries may be unable to produce sufficient fuel after being battered by Hurricane Katrina, analysts said.(AFP/Paul J. Richards)

AFP/Getty Images/File - Wed Aug 31, 9:59 AM ET Residents search for survivors by boat in the neighborhoods surrounding Lake Pontchatrain one day after Hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Chris Graythen)

AFP/File - Wed Aug 31, 9:47 AM ET The Interstate-90 bridge over St. Louis Bay in Pass Christian, Mississippi is destroyed from Hurricane Kartrina. The Pentagon is reportedly sending five ships, eight maritime rescue teams, helicopters, hovercraft and relief supplies to the southern region devastated by Hurricane Katrina.(AFP/File/Paul Richards)