PRESS RELEASE

Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Continues to Update Number of Gustav, Ike Fatalities
Department of Health and Hospitals News Update
BATON ROUGE, La. (September 15, 2008) - Please find the attached memo sent from Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Louis Cataldie, M.D., regarding fatalities related to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike:

From: Louis Cataldie, M.D.
To: Secretary Alan Levine
Date: September 15, 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 44 deaths confirmed yesterday as a result of Hurricane Gustav, two more were confirmed today, bringing the total to 46.

The two newly-confirmed deaths consist of:

• The death of an East Baton Rouge Parish resident of natural causes.
• The accidental death of an East Baton Rouge Parish resident as a result of a fire.

There are no newly-confirmed deaths related to Hurricane Ike. The total of four confirmed yesterday stands.

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)
• eath associated with recovery efforts (i.e., a person is electrocuted by a fallen electrical line while cleaning up fallen tree limbs)

Keep in mind that many individuals who died of natural causes had severe or critical medical illnesses. The storms would be considered a contributing factor to their death of natural causes, not the cause of death.

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

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