[Mb-civic] A grim search for bodies - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

A grim search for bodies
Victims are retrieved, control slowly taken

By Kevin Cullen and Stephen Smith, Globe Staff  |  September 5, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- After a week of rescuing the living from the ravages of 
Hurricane Katrina, officials yesterday began the grim task of collecting 
and identifying the dead.

At the same time, police launched a concerted effort to take back 
control of New Orleans neighborhoods from gun-toting men who residents 
say had exploited the lawlessness that followed the storm. Officers 
killed at least five people and wounded several others who shot at 
contractors for the US Army Corps of Engineers who were crossing a 
bridge to help repair a canal.

With most of the city's 500,000 residents evacuated, and the region 
swarming with some 12,000 National Guard troops, medical authorities 
began the biggest post-mortem collection and identification process 
since the Sept. 11 attacks, and suggested the final death toll could 
rival the 3,000 killed in that disaster.

State officials said they had collected the bodies of 59 people whose 
death are considered storm-related, some of them people with 
pre-existing medical conditions who died in hospitals or makeshift 
triage units. Officials said there were an estimated 100 bodies in St. 
Bernard Parish east of New Orleans. They refused to estimate with any 
precision how high the overall death toll will be, but none disputed 
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's and Mayor Ray C. Nagin's estimates 
that it would be in the thousands, and US Health and Human Services 
Secretary Mike Leavitt yesterday projected a similar toll.

Until yesterday, recovering the dead had been delayed while authorities 
concentrated on saving the tens of thousands trapped by flood waters or 
sheltered in the unruly squalor of the Superdome and convention center. 
Ten bodies were removed from the domed stadium during the day, officials 
said.

A grim-faced Dr. Louis Cataldie, who with Dr. Fred Cerise had tried to 
save some of the dying at the Superdome, said the mission had broadened. 
''We were working for the living," Cataldie said. ''Now, we're working 
for the dead and the living."

Todd Ellis, who heads the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response 
Team, said three teams of 30 each from around country were prepared to 
handle up to 1,000 bodies ''over the next day or two," and more if the 
numbers rise.

Cataldie, the medical director of the Louisiana Department of Health and 
Hospitals, said medical officials can identify about 140 bodies a day, 
but without knowing the death toll, could not estimate how long that 
process will take.

''We're preparing for the worst and hoping for the best," said Cataldie. 
''As the water recedes, I'm not sure what we're gonna find."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/09/05/a_grim_search_for_bodies/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050905/608c3cb9/attachment.htm