Some Claim Stress After Hurricane Katrina Killed Family Members; Findings Inconclusive

The AP/Boston Globe on Thursday examined how friends and families are saying the "deaths of many New Orleans residents were hastened by the stress and heartache of seeing their hometown ravaged and their lives upended" after Hurricane Katrina struck last year. To determine whether the hurricane was causing stress that led to premature deaths, Louisiana state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard compared the deaths of residents six months after the storm with the deaths of residents during the same period one year earlier. However, results were inconclusive, in part because the population of the city dispersed so widely after the storm. Before Katrina, the population of New Orleans was 455,000, while today it is estimated at about 200,000. Ratard said it is plausible that elderly residents who went without medication and who suffered stress as a result of the evacuation could have died prematurely, but he added that collecting quantitative data would be impossible. The official Katrina death toll is based on body counts done by Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and reports from other states of evacuated residents who died in the month following the storm. Ratard said, "There are some things we will really never know. We'll have to live with that" (Roberts, AP/Boston Globe, 12/14).