PRESS RELEASE

Department of Health and Hospitals News Update
Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav Fatalities
BATON ROUGE (September 11, 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 11, 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.

Today, there are no newly-confirmed deaths related to Hurricane Gustav. The total stands at the 29 deaths confirmed yesterday.

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 class! ifying 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 information on hurricanes Gustav and Ike, visit emergency.louisiana.gov.

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