From: Louis Cataldie, M.D.
To: Secretary Alan Levine
Date: September 10, 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 26 fatalities related to Gustav confirmed as of Tuesday, Sept. 9, four additional fatalities were confirmed today.
The fatalities confirmed today were all Louisiana residents who evacuated to Arkansas.
The newly confirmed fatalities consist of:
- A Calcasieu Parish resident wh! o died of natural causes.
- An Acadia Parish resident who died of natural causes.
- Two Jefferson Parish residents who died of natural causes.
A fatality confirmed on September 5, of a Winn Parish resident who died as a result of a tree cutting accident, has now been determined by the coroner to NOT be related to Hurricane Gustav. Today's four reported deaths, minus the Winn Parish fatality, bring the total deaths from Hurricane Gustav to 29.
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 recovery from 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
