Harrowing tales of loss emerge in Katrina's wake

Deteriorating conditions are difficult for survivors to bear

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SLIDELL, Louisiana (CNN) -- For many of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, little is left but heartbreak and hardship.

In Biloxi, Mississippi, Harvey Jackson told CNN affiliate WKRG-TV that he believed his wife was killed after she was torn from his grasp when their home split in half.

"She told me, 'You can't hold me,' ... take care of the kids and the grandkids," he said, sobbing. (Watch video of the man describing the loss of his wife -- 1:07)

Mississippi estimated as many as 110 deaths. Some 30 people are believed to have died in a single apartment complex in Biloxi.

Alabama reported two deaths, and in Louisiana the mayor of New Orleans said the storm probably killed hundreds if not thousands of people in his city alone. In Florida, Katrina left 11 people dead.

Biloxi resident Suzanne Rodgers, who lived in a two-story, brick apartment near the beach, said Monday that the entire building was swept away.

"All I found that belonged to me was a shoe," she said. "There's nothing left." (Read interview)

In Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, a small town west of Biloxi, search and rescue crews put black marks on homes known to contain bodies because there weren't enough refrigerated trucks to remove the corpses.

In New Orleans, Evelyn Turner wept Tuesday as she waited for someone to collect the body of her common law husband, The Associated Press reported.

Xavier Bowie, a truck driver, had lung cancer and couldn't evacuate. He died when he ran out of oxygen Tuesday, according to the AP.

Turner wrapped his body and kept a tearful vigil, the AP said, in a devastated city so overwhelmed that rescuers are pushing aside the dead to tend to the living.

In Louisiana, officials so far have not even tried to estimate how many people were killed in the storm. The U.S. Coast Guard reported 1,259 rescues, but hundreds more likely were trapped or didn't survive.

The rescued told harrowing tales.

"Oh my God, it was hell," Kioka Williams told the AP. She had hacked through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in the New Orleans' low-lying 9th Ward.

"We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

One man told the AP that he was in a 9th Ward boardinghouse where at least at least two people appeared to be dead.

Frank Mills, 56, said he was able to make it to the roof of the porch, but while making his escape he saw one woman floating face up and while on the roof a man slipped from his grasp and presumably died, the AP reported.

As conditions worsened at New Orleans' Superdome, officials planned a mass evacuation.

"We have identified shelters in other parts of the state; communities are ready to receive these people to help them out," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.

"We've got to make their living conditions a little more decent. A lot more decent, as a matter of fact, because living conditions in the dome are deteriorating rapidly -- no power, no water, hard to get food, supplies in."

The two major hospitals in New Orleans faced deteriorating conditions before evacuations got under way.

Tulane University Hospital employees carried patients to the roof of the hospital's parking garage because the elevators were not working, a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, "there's looting going on in the streets around the hospital," Karen Troyer Caraway said.

As floodwaters rose around Charity Hospital, the halls were dark and slippery, according to the AP.

Nurses hand-pumped ventilators for patients who couldn't breathe, and doctors brought supplies in by canoe from three nearby hospitals, the AP reported.

And yet the injured kept coming. At one point, a boat pulled up carrying a man doubled over in pain, the AP reported.

"Where are we going to put him? " nursing supervisor Ray Campo asked.

"It's like being in a Third World country," Mitch Handrich, a manager at Louisiana's biggest public hospital told the AP.

"We're trying to work without power. Everyone knows we're all in this together. We're just trying to stay alive."