PRESS RELEASE

Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav Fatalities
Department of Health and Hospitals News Update
BATON ROUGE (September 3, 2008) - Please find the attached memo sent from Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Louis Cataldie, M.D., regarding fatalities related to Hurricane Gustav:

From: Louis Cataldie, M.D.
To: Secretary Alan Levine
Date: September 3, 2008
Re: Fatalities Related to Hurricane Gustav

This memorandum delineates the current number of confirmed hurricane-related fatalities. As Louisiana Chief Medical Officer, I am working closely with local coroners and police departments to identify fatalities of Hurricane Gustav and offer assistance to parish coroners.

In addition to the 10 fatalities related to Gustav confirmed yesterday, eight additional fatalities were confirmed today, bringing the total fatalities related to Hurricane Gustav to 18.

The newly confirmed fatalities consist of:

• Two accidental deaths in Calcasieu Parish attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning related to generator use.
• One accidental death in West Baton Rouge Parish attributed to a house fire.
• Two accidental deaths in Evangeline Parish as a result of a tornado.
• One death in Livingston Parish due to falling trees.
• One death in Grant Parish due to falling trees.
• One death in St. Martin Parish attributed to a house fire.

Any death that is determined by the jurisdictional coroner to have been caused as a result of Hurricane Gustav will be counted as a storm-related death. General criteria for classifying a death as hurricane-related include:

• Death due to activities associated with evacuation (i.e., evacuation stress precipitates a heart attack)
• Death due to the effects of the storm itself (i.e., a tree falls on a person during the storm)
• Death associated with recovery efforts (i.e., a person is electrocuted by a fallen electrical line while cleaning up fallen tree limbs)

I will continue to notify you at the end of each day of newly-confirmed deaths related to Hurricane Gustav.

For the latest on Hurricane Gustav, you can visit emergency.louisiana.gov or call the state's emergency hotline at 1-866-288-2484 to listen to a recorded message with the most up-to-date information

###