25,000 body bags reflect worst-case scenario

NEW ORLEANS - Soldiers toting M-16s strengthened their grip on this swamped city as concerns grew about the risks posed by the toxic floodwaters and officials braced Thursday for what could be a staggering death toll by readying 25,000 body bags.

Across miles of ravaged neighborhoods of clapboard houses, grand estates and housing projects, workers struggled to find corpses and convince the city’s last stubborn residents to leave.
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Morgue expanded
Officials readied for the potential of a horrendous death toll. Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said officials have 25,000 body bags on hand in Louisiana. Asked if authorities expected that many bodies, he said: “We don’t know what to expect.”

"It means we're prepared," Johannessen said.

Nagin had earlier said New Orleans’ death toll could reach 10,000. Already, a temporary warehouse morgue in rural St. Gabriel that had been prepared to take 1,000 bodies was being readied to handle 5,000. The official death toll in Mississippi climbed to 201 Wednesday, but more than 1,000 are feared dead there, too.
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Some 25,000 body bags have been sent to the New Orleans area, as authorities begin to recover the dead in the city.

The official death toll stands at 83 in the city, including 30 elderly people found in a flooded nursing home. But thousands are feared to have died.

Bodies remain in the stagnant flood waters as health fears grow for up to 10,000 people still in the city.

Three people are also known to have died from contaminated flood water, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

They are believed to have contracted infections after coming into contact with cholera-related bacteria.

New Orleans' mayor has ordered the forced evacuation of the city, which used to have a population of 450,000.

A temporary morgue in a town about 70 miles (113km) away is preparing to handle 5,000 corpses.

A state health official told the Associated Press he did not know how many bodies to expect.

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, has said the death toll could reach 10,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4224912.stm

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- In a grim indicator of what may lie ahead, authorities were removing the remains of more than 30 people from a flooded nursing home in a suburban New Orleans parish.

The discovery at St. Rita's Nursing Home in lower St. Bernard Parish came as 25,000 body bags arrived at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Early Thursday, the official death toll along Gulf Coast from Hurricane Katrina stood at 294, but that number is expected to rise dramatically.

Mortuary teams with refrigerated trucks began arriving Wednesday at the nursing home, where St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens said "30-plus" bodies were found. Between 40 and 50 other people were rescued from the facility, Stevens said.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/08/katrina.impact/index.html