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Katrina death toll may be 10,000: mayor
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-06 08:54

At a news conference in Baton Rouge, police Superintendent Eddie Compass denied officers deserted in droves, acknowledging some officers abandoned their jobs but saying he didn't know how many.

Two police officers killed themselves. Another was shot in the head. Compass said 150 had to be rescued from eight feet of water and others had gotten infections from walking through the murky soup of chemicals and pollutants in flooded areas.

"No police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we were asked," Compass said with a mix of anger and pride.

Vehicles submerged in water pollute the water with petroleum products in New Orleans, Louisiana September 5, 2005. [Reuters]

The leader of National Guard troops patrolling New Orleans declared the city largely free of the lawlessness that plagued it in the days following the hurricane. And he angrily lashed out at a reporter who suggested search-and-rescue operations were being stymied by random gunfire and lawlessness.

"Go on the streets of New Orleans — it's secure," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore. "Have you been to New Orleans? Did anybody accost you?"

Hopeful signs of recovery were accompanied by President Bush's second visit to Louisiana that exposed a continued rift between state and federal officials over the slowness of a relief effort. The first significant convoy of food, water and medicine didn't arrive in New Orleans until four full days after the hurricane, and the mayor and others said some survivors died awaiting relief.

The Times-Picayune, Louisiana's largest newspaper, published an open letter to Bush, called for the firing of every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At a stop in Baton Rouge, Bush said all levels of the government were doing their best, and he pledged again: "So long as any life is in danger, we've got work to do. Where it's not going right, we're going to make it right."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has refused to sign over National Guard control to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts.

Blanco, a Democrat, was not informed of the timing of Bush's visit, nor was she immediately invited to meet him or travel with him. In fact, Blanco's office didn't know when Bush was coming until told by reporters.

Late Monday, Blanco denied there tension with Bush.

"We'd like to stop the voices out there trying to create a divide. There is no divide. We're all in this together," she said. "Every leader in this nation wants to see this problem solved."

While the New Orleans refugees were mostly poor and black, Jefferson Parish brought the storm's destruction to a much wider economic cross-section. The sprawling parish stretches from Grand Isle on the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Pontchartrain in the north, and includes some of the metropolitan area's most exclusive neighborhoods.

In the enclave of Old Metairie, the rows of palatial, six-bedroom homes sustained little structural damage but had some of the worst flooding. Only a few windows were broken and the live oaks survived but the water rippled up the knobs at front doors and completely covered Mercedes-Benzes, pickup trucks and BMWs in garages.

David Brown carries belongings from a home in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, September 5, 2005. Thousands of families returned to pick up pieces of their battered homes outside New Orleans on Monday and President George W. Bush promised to fix bungled rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina killed as many as 10,000 people. [Reuters]

Many residents were happy that the storm spared their homes, but angry that the failure of the levee system left them swamped. Some were considering a lawsuit against the federal government for having a levee that could survive no more than a Category 3 hurricane.

"That's what so devastating, that goddamned levee breaking," said Bobby Patrick, a resident of neighborhood now living in Houston. "My home didn't lose a shingle but it's got six feet of water in it."

Since the storm, rumors had swirled that looters had crossed over the parish line and begun breaking into evacuated homes in Jefferson. Many were relieved to return home Monday to find their belongings untouched.

Across the neighborhood, residents took what items they could fit in a boat. One woman loaded up her boat with her collection of cashmere sweaters, her cat and the 1957 Leica camera that belonged to her grandfather. A man packed his pickup truck with his silverware, his wife's clothes and a cherished animal figurine.

Unlike the poor in New Orleans, these refugees had other places to go. And few here planned to stay through what could be a long recovery. With police checkpoints on ever major street corner and ID checks for parish residents, even looting was not a major concern.

Said personal trainer Rod McClave: "I'm more concerned about them damaging my stuff just for the hell of it."

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