WAVELAND, Miss. — This is where Katrina hit hardest, where they have fished 40 bodies from the bayou and beaches, where National Guard, FEMA, state and local agencies are headquartered. This is where the local police and fire department vehicles — buffeted by saltwater surges — stand ruined amid need, where people and pastorages from the Midwest have pulled trailers of supplies, and where people are living in tents.

This is where stores are not merely roofless but obliterated masses of metal, and boats lie unmoved on the main street nearby.

But in Waveland itself, a waterfront town, there is nothing left.

Foundations are washed clean of even rubble, with mounds of debris littering the road. It wasn't just dumped; it was stirred and twisted. Few if any structures remain standing on beaches, with piers stripped of boards where the 30-foot surge rampaged like an apocalypse; scorned Katrina took all, left none.

Two members of the Waveland Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are among the known dead — Terrence and Christina Shields. Others are feared dead, and bodies remain in the funerary ruins that was once a beach city.

There are no phones, no electricity, no plumbing, no gasoline and barely passable roads where trees have been sawed into stumps. However, the LDS Church supplied local Bishop Robert Garrett with a satellite phone. Emergency food and water supplies have been brought in by church trucks.

Bishop Garrett, a Navy meteorologist, placed all the emphasis he could to get his people out of town for what he knew would be utter destruction.

"I told them to get out! Go!" he said. At a short meeting Sunday, he re-emphasized the gravity of the situation, and more left. Some didn't have means to leave.

His home fared relatively well, a few punched holes in the roof, but it is dry and muck-free inside. That's different than most.

About two-thirds of the 630-member LDS ward are less active, and some have never been located because of obscure addresses.

"There are so many areas that are unaccessible," he said, explaining that he first was trying to determine the status of members before assessing the damage and planning repairs.

He estimated half have lost homes.