September 06, 2005 Deceased Victims - 9-6-2005

BATON ROUGE, Sep 06, 2005 - Updated Number of Deceased Victims Resulting from Hurricane Katrina

• The state made its first official deaths report yesterday.

• At this time, state officials can only confirm 83 deaths from Orleans and Jefferson parishes but know that number will increase as more bodies are recovered. These 83 people are the only bodies recovered as of today’s briefing. Fifty-nine are at the morgue at St. Gabriel, two are located at the St. Charles Parish Coroner’s Office, and 22 are located at the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office.

• An additional collection point has been established in St. Bernard Parish, however there is no confirmation of the number of deceased victims that are at that location.

• Any death that is determined to have been caused as a result of Hurricane Katrina will be counted as a hurricane-related death. For example, this applies to people who drowned as well as people who required life-support but had it cut off and died as a result when power was lost during the storm.

• The state is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Mortuary Operations Response Team (D-MORT) to collect and process the bodies.