US: Three Louisiana towns allowed people to come home yesterday for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck, as officials from a nursing home and a hospital defended their handling of sick and aged patients who died after the storm.
As the Gulf Coast struggled to recover from the August 29th hurricane, the death toll rose to 648 in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Louisiana attorney general Charles Foti filed criminal charges against the operators of a nursing home where 34 patients died after they were trapped by the storm's floodwaters.
The cities of Gretna, Westwego and Lafitte, all suburbs of New Orleans, told residents they could come back at daybreak.
Fewer than 400,000 electricity customers still lacked power 16 days after Hurricane Katrina pummelled the US Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, according to area utilities and the US Department of Energy.
About 319,000 of the homes and businesses in Louisiana, or 29 per cent, remained without power, while Mississippi had about 84,000 customers still with no service.
Mr Foti said on Tuesday that the owners of a nursing home in St Bernard Parish had been arrested and charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide.
The owners, Mable and Salvador Mangano, turned down an offer from local officials to take the patients out by bus, and did not bother to call in an ambulance service with which they had a contract. James Cobb, a lawyer for the owners, said they did all they could and had told family members they could remove the patients.
In another development, the owners of a New Orleans hospital where 44 bodies were found said they were those of critically ill patients who died in stifling heat after power was cut but before it could be evacuated. Tenet Healthcare Corp said no one still alive was left behind at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans when help finally came.