Tonight ESPN showed Katrina statistics including the death toll of 1833. Seeing that number used I realized I never did an update here on the Katrina death toll. The death toll dropped in August......

Here is my August 21st post at First Draft on the decrease...

The death toll in Louisian fell slightly a few weeks ago. The state had reprted 480 out of state deaths due to Katrina in May. However they were going to review those. Now the state reports 346 out of state deaths and this is what accounts for most of the difference.

At present there are 1464 deceased victims of Hurricane Katrina from Louisiana.
In other affected states (MS, Fl, GA, AL) the least controversial number of deaths is 256 people killed.

The total Katrina death toll is 1720

However there are still 135 people still missing. The call center working to resolve those cases recently closed due to lack of funds. The people at this center have worked diligently this past year and resolved over 11000 missing cases. They are to be applauded for this difficult work. However they were unable to resolve the last 135 cases which are now being handed over to the individual parishes from which the people went missing.

In general the majority of missing and dead came from Lakeview and the 9th Ward which were severely flooded. As for the 135 unresolved cases, 108 are from New Orleans. Dr. Louis Cataldie who has worked tirelessly to find the missing and identify the dead said this regarding the missing...

"There's no doubt in my mind anyway that the way the water came in and came back out, especially in the 9th ward that may have some bodies there," said Cataldie.

So they may still lie in the debris. Experts also believe others were washed out to sea. Of course some may be alive and simply never located.

The Katrina death toll will most likely always have an asterik....1720*

....to reflect the uncertainty of those still, perhaps forever, lost.