Katrina Death Toll May Hit 10,000

[Cleita]

METAIRIE, La. - One week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, miles-long lines of vehicles crawled into Jefferson Parish on Monday as residents were allowed to return to salvage what was left of their homes. New Orleans' mayor warned that 10,000 people may have died.

More at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hurricane_katrina

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[Fovea]

1. 10K will be a happy talk figure.

I am willing to hazard a guess of 25K at least.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. I imagine Hatch and others would be calling for BC's head right

about now... but not a peep for junior.

[MuseRider]

3. Me too

if not higher. 10K seems like a pretty small number considering the area that was hit.

[benburch]

4. There are about 65,000 unaccounted for in NOLA alone. nt

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Remember, that number is for New Orleans alone

Most of the computer model runs gave figures of 10% mortality among those left in the city during a hurricane with major levee failure. If there were 150,000 people left in NO during the storm, that's a probable 15,000 deaths.

But the population of New Orleans only accounts for a small part of the population affected. About 5 million people were in the Katrina "disaster zone". Although most of these people were beyond the storm surge and on ground too high to have much flooding, we could still see as many, or more, deaths than in New Orleans.

That means 10,000 will be a low figure; 30,000 will be more probable; and even 100,000 would not be impossible, though I think it's a lot lower than that.

The problem with death toll estimates now is that no thorough-going statistical analysis has even been started. It will take at least another week of data collection before any estimates can be generated. These estimating techniques are very good; estimates of death tolls in Indonesia after the 24 Dec 2004 tsunami were within about 20% of the final "official" count.

--p!

[Lars39]

6. I read the other day that the death toll could *start* at 10,000.

Seems like it was from an interview with Nagin.