Body retrieval teams are fanning out across New Orleans and officials are promising to treat the dead with respect and dignity.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who heads the federal on-site relief and recovery effort, says each team will include four people in addition to a chaplain.
The chaplain will say a prayer before any body is removed, Allen said.
Allen told reporters Wednesday in New Orleans that after the forensic evidence has been gathered, "There will be a ceremonial symbolic washing of the body to honor the dead as observed in the Christian, Jewish and Muslin faiths."
In the same briefing, Louisiana state medical director Louis Cataldie promised to find and recover those who died, saying, "as long as there's one body floating in that water, we aren't doing a good enough job."
At one point some officials estimated that as many as 10,000 may have died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but it appears the final death toll will be much less.
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HURRICANE INFORMATION RESOURCES
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