I would be glad to hear an estimate for any geographic area you would like to postulate on.....i am not sure public numbers will ever break this down but I would exclude the secondary deaths you refer to.
I will go on record with the following:
My personal guess is that there is an absolute minimum of 2500 confirmed dead in LA MS AL, and if numbers for missing people whose residences were destroyed/completely flooded/damaged are released, I would say at least 1500 there too. I assume in NOLA they will find most if not all corpses, but in MS this is far from certain. I would not be surprised to see a number of cofirmed dead in the high 4 digits.
That's my guess too. All that shattered wood...like matchsticks would have had to kill a few or severely injure them and the water would do the rest. The miracle is that anyone who stayed is alive. Talk about a snarling ferocious beast. If hurricanes do have personalities this one was on the rag and on a tear!