A Hawai'i medical team planned to leave tonight to help victims of Katrina.

A doctor, six nurses and two emergency medical technicians will get an assignment when they arrive in Houston, the Hawai'i Department of Health said.

Dr. Paul Effler, the team's supervisory medical officer and the chief of the state Department of Health Disease Outbreak Control Division, left Sunday to join relief efforts in Tennessee.

OUTAGE AFFECTS HAWAI'I INMATES

Katrina cut power to the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in western Mississippi, where more than 850 inmates from Hawai'i are being held.

Howard Komori, who oversees Mainland inmates for the Hawai'i Department of Public Safety, said yesterday that the 1,100-bed prison in Tutwile has been using emergency generators since power failed Monday night.

BABY BORN AS FAMILY FLEES STORM

CULLMAN, Ala. — Donyelle Jean Jacques left New Orleans on Saturday, one of 49 members of her family fleeing Katrina.

When the family is finally able to return, there will be 50.

As the family drove north in an eight-car caravan, Jacques, who was pregnant and past her due date, started having labor pains.

Her boyfriend, Wilbert Joseph, said he kept turning on the car's caution lights to let family members know what was going on.

On Monday, she gave birth to an 8-pound, 10-ounce girl named Jade Leshelle Joseph at Cullman Regional Medical Center.

THEY FLOATED HIS CORPSE TO A ROAD

NEW ORLEANS — When Evelyn Turner couldn't find anyone to take her and her partner of 16 years out of New Orleans, she decided to stay home and hope the storm would spare them.

Xavier Bowie had advanced lung cancer and could not be easily moved. Yesterday, with no phone and only a small tank of oxygen left, Turner slogged out into the streets for help.

By the time she got back, Bowie was dead.

Turner and others wrapped his body in a sheet, laid him on a makeshift bier of two-by-fours and plywood, and floated him down to the main road.

For more than an hour, Evelyn Turner waited, Bowie's body resting on the grassy median as cars passed, their wakes threatening to wash over the corpse. Finally, a passing truck driver agreed to take the body to a hospital.

NO CONVENTION FOR INSURANCE OFFICIALS

MIAMI — As the nation's insurers quiver about the damage toll from Hurricane Katrina, the calamity has renewed interest in a national solution to insuring losses from mega-catastrophes.

Insurance commissioners from dozens of states were scheduled to discuss that issue at a meeting Sept. 10. Location: New Orleans.

Estimates on the insurance industry's total cost of the storm ranged from $9 billion to $25 billion yesterday. Katrina may top 1992's Hurricane Andrew — which cost more than $21 billion in today's dollars — as the most expensive hurricane ever for insurers, said Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute.

NATION'S UTILITIES SENDING IN CREWS

Electric companies from around the country began rushing crews to the Gulf Coast to help restore power to an area so devastated that it could be weeks or even months before the lights come back on in many places.

Nearly 2 million customers were without power yesterday in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Florida.