KATRINA / Death Toll of 10,000 Now Called Unlikely

NEW ORLEANS - City officials said Friday that the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath may be far lower than originally feared, as troops and police shifted their attention from rescue of the living to recovery of those who died here in the past 11 days.

The mayor had warned previously that the number of dead in New Orleans could be as many as 10,000, but other city officials said Friday morning that initial sweeps of flooded and devastated neighborhoods suggested a total that would be less cataclysmic, if still tragic.

"Some of the catastrophic deaths some people have predicted may not have occurred," said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city's director of homeland security, declining to provide further details. "The numbers, so far, are relatively minor as compared with the dire predictions of 10,000."

The revised expectations were among the glimmers of hope Friday that pass for good news in the desolate and increasingly empty Crescent City.

Despite earlier threats from Mayor C. Ray Nagin to remove holdouts by force, city officials acknowledged Friday that no one so far had been arrested for a failure to evacuate. Authorities also said they remained hopeful that aggressive persuasion would work on remaining residents, who are being warned that their lives are at risk from toxic floodwaters, scattered fires and other hazards that still menace New Orleans.

"All we can do is plead with them to do the right thing," said Sherry Landry, the New Orleans city attorney. "This city is secure. Their property is going to be okay."

Indeed, more than a week after state and local officials angrily demanded federal assistance, the city is now encircled with military checkpoints and heavily patrolled by about 14,000 National Guard and active-duty troops. Military encampments have sprouted in the Garden District's graceful Audubon Park and other dry locations, while helicopters clatter through the sky and Humvees roar through the streets.

After several days of preparations, the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency and its private contractors began a methodical effort to locate and retrieve corpses and body parts from the floodwaters, trapped inside submerged buildings or tangled in debris. Crews fanned out using flat-bottom boats to deliver corpses into refrigerated trucks parked at the waters' edge.

The bodies are being processed by Kenyon International Emergency Services, a Houston firm with close ties to the Bush administration. Kenyon employees were dressed in white suits, gloves and surgical masks. Company officials have said identification could take weeks in some cases, and next of kin will not be notified until the bodies are turned over to the state of Louisiana.

Reporters were turned away by police in attempts to accompany recovery teams or view them at close range, and authorities said Friday that the restrictions were in place to protect the privacy and dignity of the dead.

FEMA officials came under fire from free-press advocates this week for asking photographers not to take pictures of corpses.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters in Washington that the dead would be recovered "with dignity." "I want to respect the privacy of victims' families," he said.

Because so many bodies remain unrecovered or unidentified, the official death toll in Louisiana remains at 118. Along the Gulf Coast, a total of 347 deaths so far have been attributed to Katrina. [Washington Post]