New Orleans Mayor: Please Don't Come Home Yet

Roofs were torn from homes, trees toppled and roads flooded. A ferry sank. Telephone service was spotty at best. Parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast were isolated by flood waters, and Gov. Haley Barbour urged residents not to return to their homes until Wednesday.

More than 50 patients had to be evacuated overnight from two small community hospitals in central Louisiana after the storm knocked out their generators, according to Richard Zuschlag, chief executive of Acadian Ambulance. The patients were taken to two Lafayette hospitals.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said he heard reports of widespread damage across Terrebonne, Lafourche and St. Mary parishes. Crews were expected to fan out and in search of injured or killed people with helicopter crews.

To the east of the city, Jindal said state officials were planning an aerial tour on Tuesday to gauge damage to Port Fourchon, a vital energy industry hub where huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries.

Two houses built up on pilings to avoid flooding were not spared by the wind that tore through Montegut, a small Terrebonne Parish town south of Houma.

Across a narrow bayou running past the houses, globs of yellow insulation had collected in a tree and a neighbor's chain-link fence.