Re: NO: Maybe some good news
Katrina death toll still a question<br /><br />By Jim Loney<br /><br />BATON ROUGE, La., Sept 8 - Estimates of the death toll from Hurricane Katrina have run as high as 10,000 but the actual body count so far is much lower and officials who feared the worst now hope the dire predictions were wrong.<br /><br />The recovery of Katrina's victims speeded up in the last two days. As of Thursday, Mississippi had recorded 201 deaths and Louisiana 118, while other affected states had much lower numbers.<br /><br />Searchers are now going door-to-door in New Orleans neighborhoods where the water has fallen enough for a look inside flooded homes. In Mississippi teams have been recovering bodies since hours after the storm struck on Monday last week.<br /><br />The results in both places have encouraged some officials to hope the body count may not reach the predicted heights.<br /><br />"I am thinking we are better off than we thought we'd be," said Louisiana state Sen. Walter Boasso, who represents St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans, parts of which still sit under 8 feet of water.<br /><br />The authorities are ready in case the total sharply rises.<br /><br />The Federal Emergency Management Agency, taking the lead in the recovery, has brought 25,000 body bags to the Gulf region. A morgue in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, is capable of processing 140 corpses a day and officials have formed a plan to handle in excess of 5,000 bodies.<br /><br />Usually when a hurricane strikes, local officials announce death tolls within days as searchers retrieve bodies from crushed buildings and crumpled cars.<br /><br />New Orleans is different. The flood waters unleashed by Katrina's assault on its levees sit stagnant in low-lying areas, preventing rescue crews from searching thousands of houses that are up to their eaves in polluted water.<br /><br />In the first week after the disaster, officials and politicians discussed the possible death toll reluctantly, often only after being pressed by journalists.<br /><br />New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin offered up a figure as high as 10,000 under such questioning. Louisiana U.S. Sen. David Vitter said his "guesses" started at 10,000, but made it clear he had no factual basis for saying that. <br /><br />SLOW WASHINGTON RESPONSE<br /><br />Advancing the notion of a catastrophic death toll may have helped get the attention of Washington, which has being widely criticized for a slow response.<br /><br />First reports from the city, where bodies were seen floating in the water, seemed to support a horrifying toll.<br /><br />Clusters of corpses have been found in some areas. In St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, at least 32 deaths were confirmed at a nursing home. But such finds have been few.<br /><br />Hundreds of thousands fled the Gulf coast before the storm, spurred by "mandatory" evacuation orders, which in the United States are not enforced by police.<br /><br />Rescuers plucked thousands more from streets, levees, roads and rooftops. At least 32,000 were rescued and another 70,000 were evacuated from New Orleans after the storm, according to official figures.<br /><br />But some feared thousands were trapped in attics and would succumb to the water or the heat. But rescuers later found many damaged roofs where residents chopped through with axes, encouraging those hoping the toll will be lower than expected.<br /><br />In Mississippi Gulf towns, there is little stench of death compared to devastated regions of Indonesia after the tsunami.<br /><br />In the rural areas east of St. Bernard Parish, some bodies will never be found because alligators will have taken them away, locals said.<br /><br />(Additional reporting by Michael Christie in New Orleans and Crispian Balmer in Mississippi)
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