Levee Pump Fails; New Flood Coming

Expected To Be 9 Feet Or More On Many New Orleans Streets

(CBS/AP)  According to preliminary assessments by AIR Worldwide Corp., a risk assessment company, the insurance industry faces as much as $26 billion in claims from Katrina. 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.

Monday, Katrina's remnants spun off tornadoes and other storms in Georgia that smashed dozens of buildings and were blamed for at least one death. Last week, 11 people were killed when Katrina came ashore in South Florida.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, areas that were not underwater were littered with tree trunks, downed power lines and chunks of broken concrete. Some buildings were flattened and there has been looting in some areas.

The string of floating barge casinos crucial to the coastal economy are a shambles. At least three of them were picked up by the storm surge and carried inland, their barnacle-covered hulls sitting up to 200 yards inland.

The deadliest spot yet appears to be Biloxi's Quiet Water Beach apartments, where authorities said about 30 people were washed away. All that is left of the red brick building is a concrete slab.

"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current," 55-year-old Joy Schovest said through tears. "It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim."

"Many, many victims are thought to be buried under the rubble," said CBS News Correspondent Lee Frank in Gulfport, Miss.

Tens of thousands of people will need shelter for weeks if not months, said FEMA director Brown. And once the floodwaters go down, "it's going to be incredibly dangerous" because of structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes, he said.

Monday, Katrina's remnants spun off tornadoes and other storms in Georgia that smashed dozens of buildings and were blamed for at least one death. And last week, 11 people were killed when Katrina came ashore in South Florida.

Officials warned people against trying to return to their homes, saying that would only interfere with the rescue and recovery efforts.

More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard sent 800 of its soldiers to Mississippi as well.

"This is our tsunami," Mayor A. J. Holloway of Biloxi, Miss., told The Biloxi Sun Herald.

Teresa Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, shook her head is disbelief as she took photographs of the damage in her hometown.

"Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now," she said. Hurricane Camille killed 256 people in Louisiana and Mississippi in 1969.