It appears early reports about how relatively lightly the Gulf Coast got off from Katrina were over-optimistic. The prior reported death toll was 65, including the 11 people who died when Katrina passed over Florida; it appears from reports this morning that more than 100 are now known dead in Mississippi alone, and that number is expected to triple by the time everyone is accounted for. 35 people swam out of a flooding Harrison County, Mississippi emergency operations center wearing life jackets, and haven't been seen since dead or alive. Much of the Mississippi coast is still unreachable by rescue workers. No hard numbers are coming out of New Orleans, but Senator Mary Landrieu is quoted as saying "at least 50 to 100 dead". Who knows how long it'll be before everything's sorted out in New Orleans, but there's reports of bodies floating in the streets (and some reports of sharks). The US Coastguard has rescued over 1,200 people stranded by floodwaters.
(Some official figure commented how terrible it was that rescuers weren't collecting bodies, they were just pushing them out of the way and looking for survivors, like this was a bad thing. DUH!!! You take care of the LIVING first! The dead are beyond help. The living can still be saved.)
And this was considered a Category 4 hurricane. When Katrina dropped to a Category 4, people said, "Oh, this is OK now, this isn't going to be anywhere near as bad as Camille." But there's stories from all over of structures that came through Camille undamaged, that Katrina has just obliterated. (To be fair, they were 35 years younger then.) And if the prospect out of Mississippi is even close to accurate, the final death toll in Mississippi alone will exceed the total deaths from Camille before even starting to add in the completely unknown number in New Orleans. (Alabama seems to have gotten off relatively lightly with only two known fatalities, but power is still out in much of the state.) The devout among you may wish to thank whatever higher powers you believe in that Katrina weakened Sunday night, instead of continuing to gain strength as predicted as it passed across the warmest waters in the Gulf and reaching shore as a Category 5-and-then-some.
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