ONE WEEK LATER - Dysentery outbreak feared

KRT Wire | 09/03/2005 | Dysentery outbreak feared: "Sat, Sep. 03, 2005

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• How to protect yourself from cholera, typhoid, dysentery
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• Hurricane

Dysentery outbreak feared

BY TOM WILEMON, BETH MUSGRAVE, GREG LACOUR AND MARK WASHBURN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BILOXI, Miss. - (KRT) - Authorities faced a deteriorating and disturbing public health crisis from Hurricane Katrina on Saturday as bodies continued to wash ashore after five days at sea and a possible dysentery outbreak shut down a shelter for hundreds.

Fuel shortages are hampering supply efforts and causing a breeding ground for disease. There is no working sewage system. Portable toilets are scarce. People are trying to live in damaged homes, finding refuge in their vehicles and in some cases living with strangers.

Authorities fear a disease outbreak could add to the toll of fatalities from the hurricane. The number of confirmed deaths in the six southern-most counties rose to 134. Family and friends are driving through the streets of ravaged neighborhoods asking the few residents still in their homes if they know what happened to their loved ones.

The stench of decay - human and animal - was growing stronger in flattened neighborhoods where cranes would be needed to untangle the debris. Bodies swept out to sea in the storm Sunday are still coming back, authorities said.
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In other developments Saturday:

_A suspected dysentery outbreak resulted in the evacuation of an American Red Cross Shelter on Irish Hill Road across the street from Keesler Air Force Base.

_Fear of a cholera outbreak caused emergency officials to order that areas south of the CSX Railroad in Long Beach and Pass Christian be evacuated.

_The American Red Cross was running low on fuel for its relief efforts.

_No federal or private relief agency had erected tents or other temporary housing for the homeless.

_City and county officials across the Coast criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Keesler Air Force Base for not doing enough.

_Unofficial damage estimates indicate that 75 percent of all structures in the three Coast counties sustained damage, according to information from a morning briefing with relief agencies

_Interstate 110 in Biloxi, the connector between Casino Row and I-10 has been reduced to one lane in each direction due to cracks detected under the northbound. People with no compelling reason to use the roadway are asked not to."