Media catching Up - Hundreds feared dead in Hurricane Katrina

"The devastation is greater than our worst fears," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told a news conference. "It's totally overwhelming."

Hundreds being rescued by helicopter from rising waters in New Orleans.

In the Mississippi coastal city of Biloxi, hundreds may have been killed after being trapped in their homes when a 30-foot (9 meter) storm surge came ashore, a city spokesman said.

"It's going to be in the hundreds," spokesman Vincent Creel told Reuters. "Camille was 200, and we're looking at a lot more than that," he said, referring to Hurricane Camille, which hit the area in 1969 and destroyed swaths of Mississippi and Louisiana, killing a total of 256 people.