BILOXI, Miss. – U.S. Sen. Susan Collins visited the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast on Friday and said the devastation goes beyond anything she could have imagined.

The Maine Republican was one of 14 committee chairmen and ranking members viewing the damage by helicopter and on the ground. The senators were briefed by officials from the Coast Guard, the military and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In a telephone interview from Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Collins characterized the landscape in nearby Pass Christian as “unimaginable.”

“Every single home and building in that community has been damaged by the hurricane, and in most cases the homes have been totally obliterated. It’s just piles of rubble,” she said. “It was devastation the likes of which I have never seen.”

Collins, who flew by helicopter over New Orleans earlier in the day, described neighborhoods where the water was still 9 feet high and said the stench was “pretty powerful.”

Collins chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating the government’s response to the disaster.