Rescuers collect dead but finder fewer than feared
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The official death toll from Hurricane Katrina rose slowly on Saturday, boosting hopes that the calamity would claim far fewer lives than the 10,000 that had been feared.
As police and soldiers went through drowned and mostly abandoned New Orleans house-by-house,
President George W. Bush again tried to invoke the spirit that united the nation after the September 11 attacks.
The American Red Cross launched a drive to recruit 40,000 volunteers to care for survivors.
"Today, America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life. This time the devastation resulted not from the malice of evil men, but from the fury of water and wind," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
"America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it," he said on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the New York and Washington attacks that killed some 2,700 people.
The Louisiana Dept. of Health and Hospitals raised the state's official hurricane death toll to 154 and 211 people were confirmed dead in Mississippi. There was no updated official figure from Alabama, which also sustained considerable damage in the August 29 storm. Katrina killed seven in Florida.
The disappointment in this article, and elsewhere in the media, is palpable. As I pointeed out before, more bodies sell more newspapers. Plus, its a lot easier to whip up public fervor against the Bush administration when you're talking about thousands of casualties instead of hundreds.
Not that 365 deaths shouldn't be taken seriously. One death from something like this is too much, and Katrina's body count is far higher than any other hurricane's in recent memory. And there are likely more deaths to come. But still, the exaggeration by our media has been appalling.