In New Orleans, Grim Task Looms

"We have been abandoned by our own country..... ," Broussard said. "It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now."

Officials from the Bush administration came to the region again to oversee the federal operation. Chertoff, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited with residents and relief workers in Louisiana and Alabama.

President Bush, in Washington, visited the headquarters of the American Red Cross to thank workers for their efforts and to encourage Americans to donate to the charity efforts.

Michael Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said in Washington that the death toll from the hurricane and the flooding is expected to run into the thousands. There is no confirmed toll yet from Louisiana, although officials said Sunday that they are beginning to make efforts to collect bodies. More than 160 people have been confirmed killed in Mississippi.

Chertoff declined to estimate how many people had died.

"I can't tell you what the numbers are going to be, but I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "What's going to happen when we de-water and remove the water from New Orleans is we are going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, you know, got caught by the flood, people whose remains are going to be found in the streets."

Leavitt, speaking on CNN, said an outbreak of dysentery, an intestinal ailment frequently associated with major disasters when sanitary conditions break down, had been reported in Biloxi, Miss.

Chertoff told television interviewers that rescue personnel in New Orleans had encountered a number of people who do not want to leave the city, but that federal officials will insist that all people get out because of sanitation concerns.

U.S. Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) said that he opposed that effort. About a quarter of the city that is on higher ground has been mostly unaffected, he said, and some residents are still living there.

He said Mayor Nagin believes that water will be restored to some unflooded parts of the city within the next 24 hours and electricity within a month to six weeks to those parts of the city. Forcing all New Orleans residents to leave would seriously damage the city's prospects for recovery, Jefferson said.

"I would hate to see a city that is dark and a ghost town," said Jefferson. "We can't stand still and let anybody tell us that the city should go dark."

Today, NAACP President Bruce Gordon called for the federal government to set up a federal fund to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, just as it had for the victims of 9/11.

"We spent over $7 billion that was distributed to the families of September 11, and this disaster in southeast United States is no less significant, no less disastrous," he said.

He also said that the NAACP is leading an effort to identify hundreds of Baptist churches within a 250-mile radius of New Orleans that will take in evacuees from the city.

Leaders from New Orleans have protested the mass shipments of evacuees out of state, saying that New Orleans residents should be able to remain in their home state.

Salmon reported from Baton Rouge, La., and Verdon from Washington.