NewOrleans deaths up 47%

Not my usual link source for this blog, but USA Today reports that deaths in New Orleans were 47% higher in the year following the Hurricane Katrina flood disaster than in the previous year.

Doctors say the dramatic surge in deaths comes as no surprise in a city of
250,000 mostly poor and middle-class people who lost seven of 22 hospitals and
half of the city's hospital beds. More than 4,486 doctors were displaced from
three New Orleans parishes, creating a shortage that still hampers many
hospitals, says a companion study released Thursday.

Elsewhere, on the Gulf Coast mainly of Mississippi (including Deborama's parents' and sister's home town of Gulfport) cities and towns still remain in ruins and in a definitely related case, State Farm insurance company has been accused of racketeering.