Gustav, Ike Fatalities Updated | EMERGENCY.louisiana.gov

PRESS RELEASE

First fatalities from Hurricane Ike confirmed today
Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav Fatalities
BATON ROUGE La. (September 14, 2008) - The attached memo sent from Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Louis Cataldie, M.D., updates fatalities related to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike:

From: Louis Cataldie, M.D.
To: Secretary Alan Levine
Date: September 14, 2008
Re: Fatalities Related to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike

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 Hurricane Ike and offering assistance to local authorities.

In addition to the 43 deaths confirmed yesterday as a result of Hurricane Gustav, one more was confirmed today, bringing the total to 44.

The confirmed fatality today was the natural death of a Jefferson Davis Parish resident.

We have also confirmed four deaths as a result of Hurricane Ike.

The four deaths consist of:

Two accidental deaths of Terrebonne Parish residents.
Two Jefferson Davis Parish residents who died of natural causes.

Any death that is determined by the jurisdictional coroner to have been caused as a result of Hurricane Gustav or Hurricane Ike 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 Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

For the latest on recovery efforts, 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.

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