The 10,000 count seems way overblown, like somebody just pulled it out of a hat. It's a nice round number, so they used it. Irresponsible.
My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the "official" who said it could be as high as 10,000 was probably responding to the incessant questions that kept being asked by every reporter to every official in every interview...
"Could it be in the hundreds?"
"Could it be in the thousands?"
"Could it be as many as 10,000?"
After saying "We don't really know," the official probably answered, "It could be, we don't know."
Since day one, there has been a quest for a body count.
Mayor Nagin was basing his estimate on the voters lists. He forgot that actual bodies will be recovered this time, as contrasted with the WTC disaster when real thousands of people were incinerated.
The mayor of New Orleans used that number.
You know whose fault it was.
Going by how many stayed behind, and how many were rescued... the number was not that outlandish. This story is great news if true, but I somehow seriously doubt that totals will be that low in MS. The destruction was like nothing we have seen in over a hundred years, and we know many did not leave.
Vitter and Nagin both said 10,000
They know it isn't that, or at least have no proof to substantiate that number.
When the actual number comes in much lower, they can pretend to breathe a sigh of relief and act like they actually might have had their $hit together in preventing that many from dying.
I think the actual death toll will be 2 or 3 thousand, but that's just a guess, and I hope that even that is on the high side.
This is Mississippi's death toll. No one has released the toll in Louisiana. The death toll from post-Katrina violence will likely dwarf Mississippi's body count.