Atmos Energy Corporation and Its Employees Pledge Aid to Hurricane Katrina Victims on Many Fronts.

DALLAS -- Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO) announced a range of programs to support its natural gas customers and employees in Louisiana and Mississippi affected by Hurricane Katrina, including a pledge of more than $1 million to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund.

Atmos Energy is the largest natural gas utility in Louisiana and Mississippi, serving about 654,000 gas utility customers in the two states as well as numerous municipal gas systems, industrial companies and electric utilities. It estimates that approximately 230,000 of its customers were affected.

"Helping address the human needs of our customers and employees represents the first step toward recovering from this horrendous disaster," said Robert W. Best, chairman, president and chief executive of Atmos Energy Corporation in Dallas. "We have pledged $1 million in cash to the Red Cross fund and have pledged matching contributions to the Red Cross for all donations by our employees and retirees to organized charities that are dedicated to help those affected rebuild their lives."

Best said Atmos Energy has pledged not only cash contributions, but also the support of its 4,400 employees and facilities.

"We have been overwhelmed by requests from our employees who want to help in any way they can with the hurricane-relief effort," Best said. "Their generosity during times like these attests to the values our company lives every day, and their capacity for caring about co-workers and customers knows no limits."

Atmos Energy has set up an Adopt-A-Family program to match the specific needs of its employees and their families who were victims of Hurricane Katrina with the resources needed to regain a sense of stability.

Each affected family will be "adopted" by a work group from Atmos Energy's operations across the United States. The employees of that work group will assist the family members directly and will decide how best to deliver needed items to them.

"The most valuable help will be sympathetic ears and big shoulders to help support these families during tough times ahead," said Earl Fischer, Atmos Energy's senior vice president of utility operations, who is leading the company's recovery efforts. "We know that at least 48 of our employees lost their homes and virtually all their possessions. Some lost loved ones, as well."

Fischer said that cash is being provided to employees who had to evacuate or whose banks were closed by the hurricane to help with their immediate needs.

"Our business is part of the infrastructure of the communities we serve," Fischer said. "We don't just work here; we live here, too. Therefore, it's essential that our own employees get back on their feet and stabilize their lives as quickly as possible."

Fischer said that Atmos Energy has been sharing its own provisions of fuel, ice, water and food with other first-responders and law enforcement officials. The company is providing sleeping quarters for the deputies from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Department and has made available large electric generators in the damaged areas.

"As the affected areas are secured and declared safe to enter," Fischer said, "Atmos Energy's employees will undertake to help out in the areas even more through our company's long-standing tradition of community service and charitable in-kind support."

Atmos Energy Corporation, headquartered in Dallas, is the country's largest natural-gas-only distributor, serving about 3.2 million gas utility customers. Atmos Energy's utility operations serve more than 1,500 communities in 12 states from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West. Atmos Energy's nonutility operations, organized under Atmos Energy Holdings, Inc., operate in 22 states. They provide natural gas marketing and procurement services to industrial, commercial and municipal customers and manage company-owned natural gas pipeline and storage assets, including one of the largest intrastate natural gas pipelines in Texas. For more information, visit www.atmosenergy.com.