Hurricane Katrina

01:34 PM CDT on Monday, September 12, 2005

From Staff and Wire Reports

Major developments in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

• A hotline has been set up for hurricane evacuees seeking direct financial assistance: 800-975-7585.

• The number of Hurricane Katrina refugees staying in about 175 shelters and other housing in Texas was slightly more than 200,000 on Monday, according to William Ayres, spokesman for the state Division of Emergency Management.

• In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, North Texas homebuilders and their customers are worried that prices of construction materials will soar. Lumber is already costing more than it did just a month ago, and other supplies may soon follow.

• Hurricane Katrina has forced at least 372,000 school children to flee the Gulf Coast, and there are no clear answers yet on where the money will come from to educate these students, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said Monday.

• President Bush denied Monday there was any racial component to people being left behind after Hurricane Katrina, despite suggestions from some critics that the response would have been quicker if so many of the victims hadn't been poor and black. "The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort," Bush said.

• More than half of southeastern Louisiana's water treatment plants were up and running again Monday, and business owners were issued passes into the city to retrieve vital records or equipment as New Orleans continued to stir back to life.

• Throughout the shattered city, many of the thousands of troops and relief workers pause to reflect—some to mark the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

• Authorities raised Louisiana's death toll to 197 on Sunday, and recovery of corpses continued. An unspecified number of bodies were pulled from Memorial Medical Center, a 317-bed hospital.

• Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport reopened for cargo traffic, and planned to open to limited passenger service starting Tuesday.

• Damage to oil refineries and pipelines pushed retail gas prices to historic highs in the past two weeks, with self-serve regular averaging more than $3 a gallon for the first time ever, according to a nationwide survey.

WFAA-TV and the Associated Press contributed to this report.