Online visits to the Web site of the American Red Cross soared in the days after Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast, while the average number of daily Internet users in the hardest hit areas was reduced to almost nothing due to power, telephone and other utility outages, according to statistics released today by ComScore Networks Inc.

On Wednesday, as the breadth of the storm"s devastation became evident, Web traffic to the Red Cross site soared to nearly 1 million visits, more than 32 times the average number of daily visitors before Katrina hit, said Reston, Va.-based ComScore, a survey, market research and Internet audience measurement provider.

Last week, before Katrina inundated New Orleans and surrounding areas with powerful winds and massive flooding, some 700,000 people in New Orleans used the Internet on the average weekday, according to ComScore. By Monday, as the storm"s damage was being assessed, the number of New Orleans residents using the Internet dropped more than 80 percent. By Tuesday, the drop in Internet use reached 90 percent.

Other areas saw similar dropoffs, according to ComScore. In the Biloxi-Gulfport area of Mississippi, which was also devastated by the storm, Internet traffic prior to the hurricane exceeded 160,000 users on the average weekday. By Monday, that number fell by more than 75 percent, and by Tuesday, online activity had fallen below reportable levels, according to ComScore.

As the massive hurricane approached last weekend, weather Web sites were inundated with visitors seeking information about the storm and where it was headed.

The site WeatherBug.com drew more than 9.9 million visitors on Monday, while The Weather Channel Web site saw 9 million visitors that day, according to ComScore.

Overall, more than 1.7 million online searches nationwide were conducted Monday for information about "Hurricane" and/or "Katrina," more than 10 times the number of daily searches for hurricane information during the previous week., according to ComScore.