Eric Gay, Associated Press Sammuel Dunn is helped to safety by friends this morning after he was rescued by boat from his flooded home in New Orleans. He remained behind when officials called for a mandatory evacuation of the city because of Hurricane Katrina. Click photo for larger image

By Allen G. Breed
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina was not the apocalyptic storm that New Orleans has been dreading all these years. But it was still a nightmare for the city and a 200-mile stretch of the Gulf Coast.

	Bill Haber, Associated Press New Orleans escaped the brunt of Hurricane Katrina this morning as the storm took a last minute turn to the East and came ashore in Mississippi. Click photo for larger image.

Some neighborhoods in the Big Easy were submerged up to their roofs. Floodwaters gushed into Mississippi's flashy beachfront casinos. Sailboats were flung across a highway like toys. Dozens of people had to be rescued from rooftops and attics as the water rose through their homes.

And an untold number of people were feared dead.

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

Katrina barreled into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans around daybreak today as a monstrous, 145-mph storm, making a right turn at the last minute to spare the Big Easy the doomsday scenario it has long feared. Had Katrina not shifted, hurricane waters could have spilled over levees and swamped the saucer-shaped city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies.

"I was so happy that the worst-case scenario didn't unfold, but then when I started looking around, you see buildings collapsed or with holes punched in them and it's really kind of sad," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said.

	Michael Spooneybarger, The Tampa Tribune via AP Rescue workers launch a boat outside a hotel as they head into floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina to rescue a family in Pascagoula, Miss. Click photo for larger image.

At least five people were known to have died in Mississippi and Alabama because of the storm. Because of high water, rescuers could not immediately reach some of the most hard-hit areas in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.

"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."

Katrina knocked out power to more than three-quarters of 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.

As of this evening, Katrina was passing through southeast Mississippi, moving north at 18 mph. It had weakened into a mere Category 1 hurricane with winds near 75 mph.

	Dave Martin, Associated Press Arnold James tries to stay upright as a strong gust of wind nearly blows him over as he tries to make his way to the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans this morning. The roof on James's home blew off, forcing him to seek shelter at the stadium. Click photo for larger image.

But it was far from done: 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 eight 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 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, the storm surge swamped an estimated 40,000 homes. In a particularly low-lying neighborhood on the south shore of Lake Ponchartain, a levee on a canal gave way and forced dozens of residents to flee or scramble to the roofs when water rose to their gutters.

	Michael Spooneybarger, The Tampa Tribune via AP A Red Cross truck sits in front of a hotel just off Interstate 10 in Pascagoula, Miss., as Hurricane Katrina batters the area. Click photo for larger image.

"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?"

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 Alabama, Katrina's arrival was marked by the flash and crackle of exploding power 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.

	Irwin Thompson, The Dallas Morning News via AP The roof blows off Backyard Barbeque in Kenner, La., as Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. Click photo for larger image.

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 there. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.

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. "They were fortunate in that they were on the west side and the winds may not have been quite strong enough to top the levees."

	Peter Cosgrove, Associated Press A pickup truck driver negotiates a street flooded by the Grande Lagoon in Pensacola, Florida, as Hurricane Katrina passes through the area. Click photo for larger image.

A 50-foot water main broke in New Orleans, making it unsafe to drink the city's water without first boiling it. And people made several arrests for looting.

"[They] are predators and they always prey on the weak. And we'll take care of that," Ebbert said.

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.

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."

	Ric Feld, Associated Press Emelda Kador sleeps in the atrium of Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta today. Kador had to cancel an annual family trip to New Orleans and was catching a nap before returning to work. Click photo for larger image.