NEW ORLEANS - Soldiers toting M-16s strengthened their grip on this swamped city as concerns grew about the risks posed by the toxic floodwaters and officials braced Thursday for what could be a staggering death toll by readying 25,000 body bags.
Across miles of ravaged neighborhoods of clapboard houses, grand estates and housing projects, workers struggled to find corpses and convince the city?s last stubborn residents to leave.
?Right now, human life is paramount so I?m concentrating all my power on getting out people who want to leave,? New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass told NBC?s ?Today? show Thursday. He estimated that ?thousands? were still seeking to evacuate voluntarily.
Searchers were armed with proof of what many holdouts had long feared: The floodwaters are thick with sewage-related bacteria that are at least 10 times higher than acceptable safety limits. The muck contains E. coli, certain viruses and a type of cholera-like bacteria.
?If you haven?t left the city yet, you must do so,? Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. She urged anyone coming into contact with the water to scrub with soap and water.
A New Orleans water sample taken by ?Today? show producers and tested by Rice University found E. coli levels a million times higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency allows for recreational waters. That's as much E. coli as one would find in raw sewage.
Still, some were staying in defiance of Mayor Ray Nagin?s mandatory evacuation order. ?Those that don?t want us to find them, they hide,? said Gregg Brown, a South Carolina game warden helping in the search.
The danger of infection wasn?t limited to the New Orleans area. The bacteria is feared to have migrated to crowded shelters outside the state, where many evacuees are staying. Four deaths ? one in Texas, three in Mississippi ? have been attributed to wound infections, according to the CDC.
Morgue expanded
Officials readied for the potential of a horrendous death toll. Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said officials have 25,000 body bags on hand in Louisiana. Asked if authorities expected that many bodies, he said: ?We don?t know what to expect.?
"It means we're prepared," Johannessen said.
Nagin had earlier said New Orleans? death toll could reach 10,000. Already, a temporary warehouse morgue in rural St. Gabriel that had been prepared to take 1,000 bodies was being readied to handle 5,000. The official death toll in Mississippi climbed to 201 Wednesday, but more than 1,000 are feared dead there, too.
In Mississippi, efforts to restore power to residents along the battered coast were moving along. Gov. Haley Barbour said Thursday on ?Today? that power would be restored by Sunday to all homes and businesses able to receive it.
Vice President Dick Cheney plans to tour the region Thursday to assess relief efforts and ?any bureau entanglements that are preventing the execution of the effort,? an administration official told NBC on Wednesday. Cheney will be looking at relief needs ?over the timeline of three to six months.? He is expected to stop in Gulfport, Miss., New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La.
In other developments:
* The Federal Emergency Management Agency, stung by criticism that it failed to act fast enough when Katrina hit, was prepared to hand out $2,000 debit cards for each household affected by the storm. At the Houston Astrodome where many New Orleans evacuees are being housed, long lines formed to register. ?The concept is to get them some cash in hand which allows them, empowers them, to make their own decisions about what do they need to have to start rebuilding,? said Michael Brown, FEMA?s head.
* The U.S. Postal Office has delivered some 15,000 Social Security checks to collection points in areas affected by Katrina, despite being unable to locate 2,000 of its own workers. ?Regardless of where they are, we?ll move their mail to them,? Postmaster General John Potter vowed. ?My message to everybody is, if they are relocated, please inform us.?
* The Bush administration on Wednesday formally asked Congress for $51.8 billion in Katrina relief and recovery expenses, in addition to $10.5 billion already approved, calling it the latest installment ? but not the last. ?We will in fact need substantially more,? said budget director Josh Bolten, estimating that the money would cover expenses for a few weeks.
Many evacuees in Texas move out
The need to move on with their lives has refugees in shelters across Texas slowly moving out. Some are staying in the state. Others are catching buses or taking flights elsewhere.
In Houston, the number of refugees was down Wednesday to a total of 8,096 among four shelters including the Astrodome, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Joseph Leonard.
Yvette Herbert, one of the Astrodome?s refugees, said buses were leaving for cities all over the country Wednesday. Among them were Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and numerous cities in California.
?Everywhere except New Orleans,? the 19-year-old said. ?I want to go back home but we can?t right now.?
Voices of those reluctant to leave
In New Orleans, Nagin has ordered law officers and the military to evacuate all holdouts in the city ? by force if necessary. There were no reports of anyone being physically removed and it was not clear how the order would be carried out.
Some felt they were being threatened to leave. Dolores Devron lashed out in anger as soldiers led her and her husband, Forcell, out of their flooded home.
?There are dead babies tied to poles and they?re dragging us out and leaving the dead babies. That ain?t right!? she screamed, waving her arms as she was directed onto a troop carrier truck.
John and Cathy Nost rode out the storm in their French Quarter home. Now they are unwilling to evacuate even though they say they?re suffering from high fevers they attributed to heat exhaustion.
Military units supply them with food and water. They bathe in water from a nearby swimming pool laced with bleach as a disinfectant and lug buckets back to flush their toilet.
?It?s not that you get used to it, but you don?t want to walk away,? said John Nost, 59.
Sniper fire
The stepped-up evacuation came as workers trying to restart essential services came under sniper fire. More than 100 officers and seven armored personnel carriers captured two suspects in a housing project who had been firing on workers trying to restore cell phone towers, authorities said.
?We?re putting a lot of people on the street right now and I think that we are bringing it under control,? said Capt. Jeff Winn, commander of the police SWAT team. ?Eight days ago this was a mess. Every day is getting a little bit better.?
The floodwaters continued to recede, though slowly, with only 23 of the city?s normal contingent of 148 pumps in operation, along with three portable pumps. The water in St. Bernard Parish had fallen 5 feet.
State officials said 140,000 to 160,000 homes were flooded and will not be recovered, and it would take years to restore water service to all of New Orleans.
There were signs officials were growing impatient with news coverage of the disaster. FEMA has excluded journalists from recovery expeditions and asked them to not take pictures of the dead, drawing protests from press-freedom advocates.
NBC ?Nightly News? anchor Brian Williams wrote in his Web blog that an out-of-town police officer at a New Orleans fire scene pointed her weapon at media members ?armed only with notepads,? and a National Guard sergeant interfered with attempts to film members of the unit.
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