River traffic halted around New Orleans; city’s port, airport closed

River traffic halted around New Orleans; cityÆs port, airport closed Anticipating a direct hit today by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and its environs, ship pilots and the U.S. Coast Guard have stopped all vessel traffic along the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans.
   The Port of New Orleans has ceased operations. One cruise liner left quickly Saturday; incoming cruise ships and other vessels have been diverted to Galveston.
   Officials also shut down Louis Armstrong Airport.
   Rail shippers are being warned to expect delays. Norfolk Southern said it pulled its rolling stock on lines near coastal and low lying areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama inland to higher ground. The railroad halted operations Sunday afternoon south of Meridian, Miss., to New Orleans, and south of Selma, Ala. to Mobile. Operations south of Birmingham, Ala. were also discontinued. Traffic normally moving through these areas for interchange is being rerouted in cooperation with other railroads.
   Norfolk Southern said it has embargoed shipments to New Orleans and Mobile.
   The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC (LOOP) stopped offloading tankers in the Gulf of Mexico mid-day Saturday. While the offloading is halted, LOOP is supplying refiners via pipeline with crude oil stored on shore.
   Shell Oil Co. evacuated all of its 1,019 offshore workers in the central and eastern Gulf region. Chalmette Refining LLC, a joint venture between Exxon Mobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the Venezuelan state oil company, shut down its 190,000-barrel-per-day refinery nine miles east of downtown New Orleans.
   U.S. energy companies reckoned that crude oil output in the Gulf of Mexico dropped 40 percent as the storm approached.
   Worst-case scenarios predicted that most of New Orleans, including the port, would end up under 15 feet of water, without electricity, clean water, or sewage services, for as long as six months. At least 70 percent of the city is below sea level.
   The last hurricane to hit New Orleans directly was Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Betsy, a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mile-per-hour winds, killed more than 70 people and overflowed levees.
   After Betsy, the city's levees were designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina ranked as a strong Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 miles per hour this morning as its eye reached land near Biloxi, Miss.