Katrina death list in works

• By ALLEN M. JOHNSON JR.
• Advocate New Orleans bureau
• Published: Jun 24, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — The life stories of Hurricane Katrina’s dead can help communities save lives in future disasters, a research scientist — himself a newly sworn American citizen — says.

John C. Mutter, an Australian-born geophysicist and international affairs expert at Columbia University, said he is seeking the public’s help to document the lives of all those who died in the long aftermath of the 2005 hurricane.

Understanding how disaster victims lived can help to explain how and why they died, the professor said.

“What makes a person socially vulnerable tends to make a person physically vulnerable (to disasters),” he says.

While there was some debate among officials over the classification of “storm-related” deaths after the storm, Mutter says researchers at Columbia’s Earth Institute will leave that determination to family members and loved ones of the deceased.

“What might at first seem to be an unrelated death could, in fact be linked to their experience in being relocated or simply the result of the traumatic emotional shock of seeing their neighborhood destroyed,” he said.

Researchers want to compile a comprehensive list.

“What people can contribute is some description of who the person was and how they lived their lives,” Mutter said. “Did they own a car? Did they rent? Were they employed? If so, where?”

Any information submitted to “The Katrina List” at Columbia University — http://www.katrinalist.columbia.edu — would be verified before posting on an online database, he said, vowing that personal contact data will be kept confidential.

Authorities have estimated that at least 1,500 Louisiana residents perished in the storm and more than 100 are still missing. Precise figures for the deceased remain elusive, amid conflicting methods of counting “storm-related” deaths.

“It is very difficult to come to an exact number,” says state epidemiologist Dr. Raoult C. Ratard, a physician at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, who is preparing to release an updated report next week on the hurricane’s death toll.

Of the estimated 1,500 who died, 902 people died during the storm or its immediate aftermath, Ratard said. The remaining deaths occurred within a month of the hurricane — including displaced persons who died out of state, Ratard says.

“Two or three of those cases were directly related to Katrina,” he said. “The others died of heart attack or stroke or other causes.”