Untold Tragedies of Katrina

The official death toll from Katrina presently stands at over 1300. But as this article in the Austin American-Statesman points out, not everyone who is a victim of Katrina died as direct result of the hurricane or the subsequent flooding. Rather, there are countless tragedies like these here, stories of people who died fleeing Katrina:

Singer Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown was 81 and already seriously ill when he fled the area ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and associates think the stress of evacuating and the heartbreak of losing his home hastened his death.

"Gatemouth Brown" had been fighting lung cancer for a year before his death Sept. 10 in Orange, Texas. He also had emphysema and heart problems. He died shortly after his release from a hospital following an emergency procedure to clear a blockage near his heart, Brown's agent Lance Cowan said. But Cowan is sure that Brown's death was hastened by the storm.

And this one:

Deputy Coroner Jesse Paulley of the Jefferson County Coroner's Office in Louisville, Ky., knew of only one related death: Destiny's, on Sept. 13.

The toddler had been tightly wrapped in a blanket and propped, sitting up, against a pillow on a half-inflated air mattress in the apartment where her mother, the mother's boyfriend and four other members of his family were staying. She was left alone and the mattress was so soft she couldn't raise her face after she turned over. No charges were filed, Paulley said.

The storm didn't kill Destiny directly. But if she hadn't been an evacuee she would have been safe in her crib at home instead of on that air mattress.

And this one:

Clarise M. Horn, 56, died of a stroke in Fort Worth, Texas, where she was taken after five days in the Superdome, said daughter Joycelyn M. Brumfield. After Horn had a stroke six months ago, her daughter said, her doctors said another stroke would kill her.

"During the storm in the Superdome, she was already fragile," Brumfield said. "No medicine, dehydration — it was just awful."

Brumfield said her arm was wrenched from her mother's while buses were loaded at the Superdome. She and other family members wound up on a bus to Kansas City; her mother went to Texas. A day or two later, she learned her mother was dead.

If you thought it were possible to get some kind of handle on the scale of the death and destruction that Katrina inflicted, stories like these will make you think otherwise. Realizing that there's more out there, countless losses that will never all be known, adds a sobering gloss to any stories of recovery.