Medary.com

Death toll along the Mississippi coast exceeds 100.

After sharing what he witnessed, he teared up. "It's hard," (Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour) said, "but I promise you Mississippi and the rest of the Gulf Coast will recover. It will cost a lot, but we'll rebuild, and the Coast will be bigger and better than ever."

Mississippi utilities struggle to restore power.

Utility companies were still scrambling this afternoon to assess damage to power lines, generators and other essential pieces of the state’s electrical grid. Officials from Mississippi Power, which serves nearly 60,000 homes and businesses in the Pine Belt area, said all of its 195,000 customers around the state were without electricity after the storm.
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Other utilities were hit hard as well. By late afternoon, Entergy had nearly 270,000 customers in Mississippi without power -- almost 88,000 in the southern part of the state.

Reporters from the Biloxi paper (which is relocating operations to Columbus, GA) are continuing to work via this blog.

Bloggers are organizing to provide relief for Hurricane Katrina victims. You can view the list of participating blogs here.

Medary.com supports the Salvation Army--click on the link to go straight to their donation page. Their alternate donation page is here.

The New Orleans Saints will practice in the Alamodome in San Antonio:

The Saints practiced in San Antonio last year when Hurricane Ivan threatened New Orleans.

The team is still uncertain whether the Superdome will be ready for its home opener against the New York Giants on Sept. 18.

Saints owner Tom Benson's "second home" is San Antonio.

CNN reports the mobilization of U.S. Navy ships to assist in the recovery effort. The USS Bataan was allocated a couple of days ago.

Several other ships, including a rescue and salvage vessel and the USS Iwo Jima, another amphibious assault ship, are on their way from Norfolk, Virginia, the Navy said.

The USNS Comfort, a floating hospital based in Baltimore, Maryland, will depart in coming days. A medical crew from Bethesda Naval Hospital will staff the ship. It has full hospital capabilities, including operating rooms and hundreds of beds.

CNN reports on-air that the carrier USS John F. Kennedy may also be added to the relief effort.

Children's Hospital in New Orleans was reported to be under siege:

Late Tuesday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said the facility in the city's north end was being targeted, and people in the hospital were in danger.

The Louisiana Superdome, always referred to as a "shelter of last resort." must be evacuated as conditions worsen there.

The governor has said she wants the dome empty in two days and a spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness says it'll happen. But Lieutenant Kevin Cowan (KOW'-uhn) declined to disclose specific plans. He says the dome really is more of a shelter of last resort and was never intended as a primary evacuation location.

Reports indicate as many as 30,000 to 60,000 refugees are in and around the immediate Superdome area. The relocation effort will be massive. Officials are still considering where to move the refugees.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories - boats the agency uses to house its own employees.

Update: Fox News reports that the Superdome refugees will be relocated to Houston's Astrodome.

The New Orleans levee system has suffered at least three breaches and water continues to pour in to the city of 500,000 people. Contrary to prior reports, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not suspended efforts to seal the largest breach, in the 17th Street Levee, with 3000-pound sand bags dropped from helecopters.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that everything depends on closing the levee breaches. Most of New Orleans is below the natural water level of Lake Ponchatrain, so it will not go down by itself. The water will need to be pumped out, and they won't be able to start that until the levees are repaired.

No whip today. The developing story of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf coast is the dominant story today.

Christian Science Monitor reports "good news" about an Iraqi Army unit:

The 2/2 is hardly like an American battalion. Its troops conduct patrols in unarmored pickup trucks, and the chain of command is still too top-heavy, in the American view.

However, an Iraqi formation can fight the insurgents in an efficient manner, Theya says. "We have a dialogue with people. If I find an explosive device, we'll close the road, and also close all the shops along it," he says. "So if people work with us, they help themselves."

Similar tactics by US troops tend to feed local hostility. Iraqi soldiers are inherently less provocative, Theya says, citing cultural affinities among all Arab Iraqis, whether Sunni or Shiite.

This is the progress that the anti-war people want to stop.

Jefferson Parish in Louisiana is under martial law.

Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on CBS that it would be “quite a while” before evacuees can return. In some places, “it will be weeks at least before people can get back.”

The city “is going to be incredibly dangerous” due to structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes, Brown said.

Flood waters are still rising in New Orleans. There are reports that the 17th Street levee in New Orleans has a "two-block wide break." Things appear to be deteriorating rapidly in New Orleans. The early assertions that the city had "dodged a bullet" appear to be premature.

Prayers and donations to the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, or other reputable charitable organizations are the rule of the day. Give blood if you can. There will be no Morning Whip today...frankly, the developing Katrina disaster is the only story worth reporting today.