New Orleans Locals Think Katrina's Toll Is Still Rising

Chisom, executive director of the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, a group that fights racism, noticed that over the next few months his mother's health deteriorated rapidly. "She would say, 'I'm really tired,' and 'I'm uncomfortable,' " Chisom said. He thinks now that she was not only talking about her physical state, but also about her circumstances and her life.

While he was in Washington at a fundraiser, he received a call from his daughter that Comeaux had died. "I know stress. . . ." he said, "The stress of everything got to her. It's getting to me."

Readers of the Times-Picayune are talking about the surge in death notices. "If you look," said Janis Collins, who works in the office of a private school in Metairie, "there are twice as many, sometimes three times as many death notices in the paper as there used to be." She said most of the deaths seem to be older people, 60 and older, who are just giving up the ghost.

On a recent Friday, there were more than two pages of photos and remembrances. All but six of the 61 people listed died this year.

Some deaths that occurred earlier after Katrina are just now being honored with a notice.

Vickie Cochran, 54, who takes death notices over the phone at the newspaper, said there has been an explosion of business. "Everybody's been commenting on that in our office."

"I think people are just under so much stress -- stress of the move, worried about money, jobs, everything," she said.

Billy Henry, 57, of Bultman Funeral Home on St. Charles Avenue, said, "We definitely have seen an unbelievable increase."

"The number of deaths has increased," agreed Michael Kelly, 37, of the Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemeteries. His company, which owns three funeral homes in the New Orleans area, buried as many people, maybe a few more, this January as in January last year. The difference is that the population has dropped dramatically -- from more than a million in the Gulf Coast area to less than 600,000.

New Orleans's population has fallen from 450,000 to less than 200,000, a mayoral commission estimates. So the percentage of deaths is up, Kelly said.

There are mitigating factors, he and others pointed out. For instance, there are fewer funeral homes in business.

Charbonnet, who has been in the profession for decades, said that doesn't explain his steady business. The owner of one of the largest African American funeral homes in the New Orleans area, Charbonnet said most of the 12 or so people he is burying each week had a contract with his home and planned to hold their services there. He also pointed out that the African American population of New Orleans has been drastically reduced and he is seeing about the same number of deaths as he did at a peak before the storm.

Charbonnet insisted that, in many cases, Katrina is the unofficial cause of death.

Henry agreed. "People in nursing homes who were displaced or jerked around" are feeling the effects. A lot of deaths are occurring out of town, and "they are shipping bodies back home," he said.

Another funeral director, Mike Misshore, 46, of Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home, said, "Go out to Delta Airlines at the airport. You'll see a lot of people coming in." He was talking about dead people.

On a recent morning, Charbonnet's funeral home buried a retired school principal who had lost her home and was living in Baton Rouge.

"She was a good, strong woman," said Charbonnet. "Her family feels her death can be attributed to the stress of moving, and having no place to settle herself."

She was in her early seventies, he said, and in excellent health -- no illnesses, no signs of deteriorating strength. She died unexpectedly in her sleep.