PRESS RELEASE

Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav Fatalities
Department of Health and Hospitals News Update
BATON ROUGE, La. (September 9, 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 9, 2008
Re: Fatalities Related to Hurricane Gustav

This memorandum delineates the current number of confirmed hurricane-related fatalities. As Chief Medical Officer for the state of Louisiana, I am working closely with local coroners and police departments to identify fatalities as a result of Hurricane Gustav and offering assistance to local authorities.

In addition to the 25 fatalities related to Gustav confirmed as of Monday, Sept. 8, one additional fatality was confirmed today, bringing the total fatalities related to Hurricane Gustav to 26. The fatality confirmed today was the death of a Washington Parish resident who died of natural causes.

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)

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