Turning to Grimmest Task
Body recovery is beset by difficulties. At one
nursing home, removal of 26 dead took six days.
Los Angeles Times
NEW ORLEANS -- Search teams wearing white protective suits removed 13 corpses from a nursing home on the outskirts of the city Saturday, as federal and Louisiana state officials said that the focus of the massive hurricane relief effort was shifting from rescuing survivors to recovering bodies. But the efforts to ramp up the recovery work were accompanied by complaints of local officials and gruesome scenes across the city that suggest the body-collection effort is beset by many of the same breakdowns that have characterized almost every aspect of the government's response to the disaster.

Nursing Schools Nationwide Are Mobilized to Accommodate
Students and Faculty Displaced by Hurricane Katrina
U.S. Newswire
WASHINGTON -- The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) applauds the efforts of nursing schools nationwide to accommodate the 3,000 nursing students and faculty displaced by Hurricane Katrina. More than 100 schools representing 35 states and the District of Columbia have made arrangements to accept students on an expedited basis, provide housing when possible, and offer nurse faculty opportunities to teach while their home institutions in New Orleans and the surrounding area remain closed. The listing of nursing schools providing assistance to students and faculty is available online at http://www.aacn.nche.edu/HurricaneRelief.htm.

Viral Outbreak Among Evacuees Contained
ABC News
HOUSTON -- Doctors at the complex housing thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees said Friday they have contained a viral outbreak that caused diarrhea and vomiting among hundreds of people. About 700 people have been treated, with 40 still in isolation to contain the virus, said Dr. Hermenia Palacio, director of Harris County Public Health and Emergency Services.

Flooded Toxic Waste Sites Are Potential Health Threat
The Washington Post
Three Superfund toxic waste sites in and around New Orleans were flooded by Hurricane Katrina and one remains underwater, Environmental Protection Agency officials said yesterday, adding that they will soon start investigating whether hazardous materials are leaching into the environment. Although the agency is focused on conducting search-and-rescue missions and taking floodwater samples from the city at large rather than from waste sites, officials have begun to monitor the potential danger. The Agriculture Street Landfill in New Orleans, where city residents dumped their trash for decades, is still underwater. In the nearby suburbs, the Bayou Bonfouca site in Slidell, La., and the Madisonville Creosote Works site also sustained flooding.

Declaring area safe is a risky proposition
Environmental experts warn of pressure to jump the gun
Dallas Morning News
While environmental workers risk disease and injury sampling the toxic waters covering much of New Orleans, their bosses could eventually face a different challenge: resisting pressure to declare the city safe too soon. The urge for people to come home, and the need to restart the Crescent City's shipping, industrial and tourism economy, is likely to bring demands for cleanup managers to play down the hazards, former Environmental Protection Agency officials warned Friday.

Experts: Fetid Water No Risk to Lake
Newsday New York
An EPA analysis of the stagnating floodwater conducted earlier this week revealed a veritable zoo of microorganisms mixed with toxins, such as lead. Edward Bouwer, a professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University and other scientists yesterday emphasized that human bacteria, such as E. coli and other intestinal coliform species, will not live long. Pumping the water into the lake disperses the bacteria and exposes them to ultraviolet light. In Washington, Candy Walters, spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said pumps are running 24 hours a day to drain toxic floodwater out of New Orleans. "Not all of the pumps are up and running," Walters said, adding that it will take at least 80 days to get all of the floodwater out of the city.

Miss. Residents Say Health Warning Lacking
ABC News
BILOXI, Miss. -- The neighborhood called Point Cadet at the east end of Biloxi has no clean running water and a foul stench the residents are certain it's human decay pervades the air, burning the throat when the wind blows right. In addition to the many hurricane-flattened houses no one could live in, there are some still standing, though heavily damaged. And people are staying in them, in some of the most unsanitary conditions imaginable.

Experts Concerned About Children's Trauma
The Associated Press
In a disaster within a disaster, unprecedented numbers of shaken children left in Hurricane Katrina's wake are testing the nation's network for emergency psychological help, according to caregivers and experts. Counseling teams have been dispatched to shelters across the South where, beside overwhelmed parents, some children rested on cots with their heads covered, stared into nothingness, or cowered at a simple rain shower.