New Orleans Begins to Deal With Its Dead

[beetbox]

New Orleans Begins to Deal With Its Dead

Sunday September 4, 2005 2:16 PM

By ALLEN G. BREED

Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - As the last weary refugees from the Superdome and convention center headed to shelters, New Orleans drew closer to dealing with its dead, a gruesome landscape of corpses expected to number in the thousands.

No one knows how many people were killed by Hurricane Katrina and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating in the ruined city, crumpled in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

Echoing the mayor's prediction, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Touring an airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said ``a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5255141,00.html