45 Bodies Found at New Orleans Hospital
BRETT MARTEL
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The bodies of 45 patients have been found at a flooded-out hospital, a state health official said Monday amid otherwise encouraging signs large and small that New Orleans is climbing back two weeks after it was slammed by Hurricane Katrina.
The bodies were found Sunday at 317-bed Memorial Medical Center, which was abandoned more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters, said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals.
The Louisiana death toll rose to 279, up from 197 on Sunday, Johannesen said.
Meanwhile, more than half of southeastern Louisiana's water treatment plants were up and running again Monday, and business owners were issued passes into the city to retrieve vital records or equipment as New Orleans continued to stir back to life.
Also, President Bush got his first up-close look at the destruction in New Orleans on Monday, taking a tour that took him through several flooded neighborhoods. Occasionally, he had to duck to avoid low-hanging electrical wires and branches.
In Washington, Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown announced he is resigning ``in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president.'' Brown has been vilified for the government's sluggish response to the tragedy. Last week, he was stripped of responsibility for overseeing the cleanup and was abruptly recalled to Washington.
As for the discovery of the bodies at the hospital, Johannesen said he had no further information, and Police Chief Eddie Compass declined to answer any questions, including whether police received any calls for assistance from those inside Memorial Medical Center after the hospital was evacuated.
``I can't say nothing,'' Compass said, referring questions to a spokeswoman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin who did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Dr. Jeffrey Kochan, a Philadelphia radiologist volunteering in New Orleans, said he spoke Sunday night with members of the team that recovered the bodies. He said they told him they found 36 corpses floating on the first floor.
``That's what they were talking about last night,'' Kochan said. ``These guys were just venting. They need to talk. They're seeing things no human being should have to see.''
To prevent looting, business owners wanting to enter the city's central business district and take what they needed to run their companies were required by police to obtain passes.
Traffic was heavy on the only major highway into the city that was still open, and vehicles were backed up for about two miles at a National Guard checkpoint across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
Among the businessmen allowed back was Terry Cockerham, owner of Service Glass, which installs windows at businesses downtown. He has been working out of his house because his business was destroyed by looters and flooding.
``This is about the most work I've ever had,'' he said. ``We'll work seven days a week until we get this job finished. I don't want to get rich. I just want to get everything back right.''
There were also signs of life at businesses elsewhere in the city.
In the French Quarter, Nick Ditta was at Mango Mango, the bar he manages on Bourbon Street, searching for time cards. ``It's a mess man. There is no doubt about it,'' Ditta said. ``But our people are going to get paid. That's all I'm worried about.''
During his visit to New Orleans, the president denied there was any racial component to the way the government responded to the disaster, disputing assertions that Washington was sluggish because so many of the victims were poor and black.
``The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort,'' Bush said. He also rejected suggestions that the nation's military was stretched too thinly with the war in Iraq to deal with the Gulf Coast devastation.
Though 50 percent of New Orleans remained flooded _ down from 80 percent during the darkest days _ and teams continued to collect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corpses, there were clear signs of recovery: Over the weekend, trash collection resumed, and the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport reopened for cargo traffic. It planned to open to limited passenger service starting Tuesday.
A plane carrying equipment to rebuild New Orleans' mobile phone networks took off from Sweden on Monday after waiting more than a week for a go-ahead from the United States. The shipment included network equipment donated by the Swedish cell phone giant LM Ericsson.
``Each day there's a little bit of an improvement,'' Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, commander of the New Orleans relief efforts, told NBC on Sunday night. ``And in the end run, maybe a week, two weeks from now, someone's going to wake in the morning and have something they didn't have the day before, and that's hope.''
State officials said Monday that 16 of southeast Louisiana's 25 major wastewater treatment plants were up and running again.
In the effort to drain the flooded area, 41 of 174 permanent pumps were in operation, and officials expected an increase in temporary pumps within 24 hours.
As of late Sunday, water in many parts of the metropolitan area was going down at least a foot a day, the Army Corps of Engineers said. Once the streets are dry, crews can begin removing debris, checking buildings and other structures for soundness, and restoring utilities.
Military cargo airplanes were set to begin spraying the area on Monday to kill flies and mosquitoes. The standing water from Katrina is expected to worsen Louisiana's already considerable mosquito problem. Before the storm hit, the state had logged 78 cases of mosquito-borne West Nile virus and four deaths from the disease this year.
Insurance experts doubled to at least $40 billion their estimate of insured losses caused by Katrina _ a figure that would make it the world's costliest hurricane ever. Risk Management Solutions Inc. of Newark, Calif., put the total economic damage at more than $125 billion.
In the French Quarter, burnt-orange rubble from terra-cotta roof tiles sat in neat piles for collection along the curb. Bourbon Street was cleaner than it ever is during Mardi Gras. And Donald Jones, a 57-year-old lifelong resident, said he was no longer armed when walking his street.
``The first five days I never went out of my house without my gun. Now I don't carry it,'' Jones said over the weekend. ``The only people I meet is military.''
Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, commander of active-duty troops engaged in hurricane relief, reiterated Sunday the number of dead would be ``a heck of a lot lower'' than initial projections of perhaps 10,000.
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Associated Press writers Erin McClam, Mary Foster, Colleen Long, Warren Levinson and Howie Rumberg contributed to this report.
