飓风"卡特里娜"连日来横扫墨西哥湾沿岸各州，为密西西比河注入了大量雨水并造成新奥尔良洪水泛滥，官员们表示，飓风可能已经造成美国数百人死亡。外电报道如下：

Several U.S. weather and news Web sites were deluged by heavy traffic as hordes of people went online seeking emergency information and news on Hurricane Katrina, which battered the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Some of the graphic content on weather.com was not available from 6 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. on Sunday night, as the storm was approaching its Louisiana landfall, according to Keynote Systems Inc., which monitors Internet performance.

文中的“hordes of”的意思是“成群的；大批的”，如：A horde of children ran over the office building.（一大群孩子在办公大楼里到处奔跑。）又如：There were hordes of fans waiting outside the theatre.（剧院外等着大批的狂热爱好者。）