detoxed

Metro area how many dead?

Hurricane Katrina has inflicted more damage to Mississippi beach towns than did Hurricane Camille, and its death toll is likely to be higher, the state's governor said Tuesday.

Camille killed 143 people when it struck the state's coastal counties in 1969 and a total of 256 after it swept inland.

"There are structures after structures that survived Camille with minor damage that are not there any more," Gov. Haley Barbour told reporters in Jackson.

Katrina destroyed "every one" of the casinos that raked in a half-million dollars per day to state coffers, Barbour said after a helicopter tour of the affected areas.

"There were 10- and 20-block areas where there was nothing -- not one home standing," he said.

Barbour would not give a confirmed death toll, but said it was likely to be higher than previous reports of 50 to 80 dead. (Full story)

Jason Green, of the Harrison County Coroner's Office, said funeral homes in Gulfport had received 26 bodies since the storm passed Monday.

In the small town of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, search-and-rescue crews put paint marks on homes known to contain bodies, because there weren't enough refrigerated trucks to remove the corpses.

In Biloxi, an employee of the city's Grand Casino was awed by the extent of the damage.

"I was a senior in high school when Hurricane Camille hit, in 1969, and I have never seen destruction of this magnitude," said Scott Richmond.

Part of the city's sea wall was washed away, and nearly every downtown building had extensive damage to its first level.

State emergency management officials said 80 percent of the state's residents had no power.

In Biloxi, a 25-foot swell of water crashed in from the Gulf of Mexico Monday and inundated structures there.

Up to 30 people are believed to have been killed when an apartment complex on the beach collapsed in the storm.

Distraught resident Harvey Jackson told a local television station about losing his wife in the floodwater as they stood on their roof. (Watch the video report of a husband whose wife slipped from his grip -- 1:07 )

"I held her hand as tight as I could and she told me, 'You can't hold me.' She said 'Take care of the kids and the grandkids,' " he sobbed.

Streets and homes were flooded as far as 6 miles inland from the beach, and looting was reported in Biloxi and in Gulfport, Mississippi, officials said.