In all of Louisiana, the current death toll is 646 ; [the grand total - in all the states effected is 883 - both numbers are SURE TO INCREASE].
That's a lot less than the 10,000 which was predicted by Nagin on Tuesday - after Katrina had spared the city, but while it was becoming uncontrollably inundated by the floodwaters due to 3 CANAL breaks.
Of the 646 deaths in Louisiana, 154 (according to today's NYTIMES) were patients on hospitals and/or nursing homes who were physically unable to evacuate on their own and who absolutley depended on hospital officials and on local and state governments to ENFORCE the evacuation orders they gave; (neither Bush - nor the federal governemnt, nor FEMA - had ANY AUTHORITY to order any evacuation; though according to Governor Blanco's statement on the Saturday before Katrina hit, Bush had IMPLORED her to declare an evacuation).
Can any RATIONAL person blame Bush or the federal government or FEMA for these 154 deaths - 25% OF THE DEATHS - one quarter of the deaths - 1-IN-4 OF THE DEATHS, the deaths of these - the MOST VULNERABLE of all residents of New Orleans?! NO. WILL THAT STOP THE LEFTIES FROM BLAMING BUSH and FEMA and Brown. Of course not; they're not rational. [And the Left will also fail to see that Nagin's and Blanco's utter failure to enforce and/or undertake the mandatory evacuation didn't just harm the patients in hospitals who couldn't physically move on their own, but EVERYONE in New Orleans: the people who had no personal means of evacuating, and the people who did evacuate and whose property was left unprotected from looters by the incompetent and corrupt N.O.P.D.!]
I have a feeling that LAWYERS representing the families of these dead will sue the hospitals and the city and the state, not the feds. And that they'll win.
The media are lockstepped on these numbers and resolute in their use of "Louisiana" statistics, not New Orleans. So the death toll state wide from the time Katrina hit until now is 964. So consistent is this conspiracy of deceptive accounting that the AP will sandwich the number in between lines about New Orleans alone, in an article about New Orleans. The press simply seeks to build a case and give the rabid left leverage in their talking points. They were so eager for the New Orleans death toll to grow into the thousands they now want to use statewide numbers to some how gin up their case against Bush. Survey 100 articles about New Orleans and you'll see the statewide deathtoll used in every single one. Shame on them all.
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