Higher-than-expected death toll seen in clustered New Orleans corpses

By mid-afternoon Friday, the black triangles used to designate human remains were multiplying on an emergency command center map. Federal Emergency Management Agency rescue squad liaison Charles Hood said a spike in discoveries Friday has started to take an emotional toll on rescue workers.

“Our squad members are getting access to trauma and grief counselors,” Hood said. “It’s becoming a very difficult task.”

The state is in charge of releasing Katrina’s official death total, which stood at 579 Friday evening. Hood said the periodic reports from his seven 80-person squads indicate the casualty count is going to jump in the coming days, but declined to speculate on what the number would climb to. One squad alone located and marked more than a dozen houses containing dead people on Friday.

“Parts of the city have become a target-rich environment for human remains,” Hood said. “We’re just now getting into the areas that experienced the most rapid inundation.”

Large chunks of the city, including parts of Gentilly, the Desire-Florida area and Upper 9th Ward, have revealed tell-tale signs that the two breaches of the London Avenue Canal led to a rapid rush of floodwater that caught scores of residents off-guard. The surprise factor was only worsened in that the fast-rising water, more than 12 feet in spots, came well after the storm had passed.

“Those are areas where the people were probably asleep when the water rushed in,” Hood said.

The Urban Search and Rescue Squads are now bracing for inspections of still-unchecked neighborhoods that experienced rapid inundation, such as the Lower 9th Ward. The inspections are referred to as “secondary searches,” in which squad members are breaking into homes to conduct room-to-room searches, Hood said. In some cases, workers have been breaking through roofs and attics before checking off houses as “all clear.”

While Thursday and Friday’s developments were mostly grim, the discovery of a 70-year-old man, alive and well after being trapped for 17 days, brought cheers from the beleaguered rescue squads. He was the first “live” discovery by the squads in two days, Hood said. The man was found in an area below the University of New Orleans campus, but other details about the rescue were unavailable late Friday.

“That is really going to help give momentum to everybody,” Hood said. “As bad as things are out there, we’re still holding out hope that we can find others like him.”

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