Life continues in the hurricane ravaged south as more are rescued, but many others found dead.
Sept 4: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin discusses Hurricane Katrina and the devastating aftermath. NBC's Campbell Brown asks the mayor who he believes is responsible for the slow relief response.
NEW ORLEANS - This city turned much of its attention Sunday to gathering up and counting the dead across a ghastly landscape awash in perhaps thousands of corpses. “It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine,” the nation’s homeland security chief warned.
As police sought to restore order, they encountered at least one person with a gun who fired on contractors with the Army Corps of Engineers, the Corps reported. The police fatally shot the gunman, the Corps said.
Air and boat crews searched flooded neighborhoods for survivors, and federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety.
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To expedite the rescues, the Coast Guard requested through the media that anyone stranded hang out brightly colored or white linens or something else to draw attention. But with the electricity out though much of the city, it was not known if the message was being received.
With large-scale evacuations completed at the Superdome and Convention Center, the death toll was not known. But bodies were everywhere: floating in canals, slumped in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways and medians and hidden in attics.
“I think it’s evident it’s in the thousands,” Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Sunday on CNN, echoing predictions by city and state officials last week. The U.S. Public Health Service said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.
In the first official count in the New Orleans area, Louisiana emergency medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths — 10 of them at the Superdome.
“It’s a small number and everyone knows it’s going to grow,” said Dr. Fred Cerise, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. “Today’s number will only begin to describe and quantify the tragedy.”
“We need to prepare the country for what’s coming,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We are going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood. ... It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine.”
Chertoff said rescuers have encountered a number of people who said they did not want to evacuate.
“That is not a reasonable alternative,” he said. “We are not going to be able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks and months while we de-water and clean this city. ... The flooded places, when they’re de-watered, are not going to be sanitary.”
In addition to civilian deaths, New Orleans’ police department has had to deal with suicides in its ranks. Two officers took their lives, including the department spokesman, Paul Accardo, who died Saturday, according to Riley. Both shot themselves in the head, he said.
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Air evacuation of the Superdome was temporarily halted Thursday after shots were reportedly fired at a military helicopter.

Evacuations by bus continue, despite an early news report to the contrary.  Thousands of people taking temporary shelter in the Superdome and nearby areas in New Orleans are being evacuated after Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a complete evacuation of the city, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Evacuees will be taken to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.

Looting has become an increasing concern, as looters and gangs are beginning to rob hotels and hospitals.  Some looters have even been able to take guns from abandoned shops.  Officials say that they are concerned about the increasing number of people with guns.  Police officers stranded on the roof of a hotel reported shots fired at them.

President George W. Bush plans to visit the affected areas on Friday.  Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush are expected to lead a private fund-raising campaign for the victims of the hurricane, similar to the campaign after the oceanic earthquake and resulting tsunami in late 2004.