Forensic Workers Broaden Search for Bodies
September 10, 2005 1:50 PM EDT
NEW ORLEANS - Cadaver dogs and boatloads of forensic workers fanned out Saturday across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina. Cleanup crews towed away abandoned cars and even began readying a hotel for reopening.
Despite missing 300 officers from his 1,750-strong force, Police Chief Eddie was upbeat as he reported that 200 arrests had been made since the hurricane.
"We are definitely in control of this city," Compass said. "We've been almost crime free for the last four days."
The confirmed death toll in Louisiana stood at 154 people, including some patients on life support who died when power went out, but the toll was expected to climb as crews collected bodies trapped in houses and floating in murky water. Police and military officials have been marking the location of bodies with global positioning devices and paint on the outside of houses.
Around the city center, crews began cleaning the mounds of trash and other debris strewn by the hurricane and by fleeing residents.
Bulldozers pushed heaps of chairs, sleeping bags and other discarded items into giant piles at the convention center, the chaotic site where thousands initially took refuge before being evacuated a week ago. Dump trucks were hauling the debris away.
Tow truck drivers started picking up the scores of abandoned cars littering the streets; other workers unloaded food and supplies for employees working in Bell South's downtown office.
At the Parc St. Charles hotel, crews went floor to floor cleaning up. "There's lot of spoiled meat, a lot of bacteria that needs to be cleaned up," said Bob Allen, who was supervising the crew.
At the Superdome, where thousands first sought shelter only to be trapped inside by the floodwaters, water levels had dropped markedly. Water that once submerged cars parked around the dome had dropped to about a foot high.
Detective Danny McMullen accompanied a crew of doctors, National Guardsmen and other police checking to see if it was safe to reopen Charity Hospital, where doctors and patients had been stranded in rising flood waters.
"They want to try to get the hospital running as soon as possible," McMullen said.
Thousands of residents continue to defy orders to leave the city, but security forces were not physically forcing anyone to go. Mayor Ray Nagin warned earlier that residents could be forcibly removed, but authorities have been reluctant to take that step.
Teams with search dogs were deploying from a casino used as a makeshift headquarters downtown.
Kelly Duffy, a 24-year-old who also helped search for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack in New York, was waiting to be deployed with a search dog team.
She said the dogs were an efficient way to search for the living and the dead. They bark when a person or cadaver is found, and handlers can distinguish which the dogs have found.
"This is all we need because they are so insistent and can cover a large area," Duffy said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said most of the city could be drained within a month, though some areas hit by the storm surge could take longer. The estimates are far shorter than early predictions by the corps, which has struggled to get breached levees repaired and pumps operational.
"We learned long ago not to be too optimistic in times like this. But a few days ago we were talking about 80 days," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps' chief of engineers, who was in Vicksburg, Miss.
Power and other utilities remain out in most of the affected region. More than 427,000 customers lack power, and 500,000 have no phone service, state officials said.
