Four of those seemingly were from natural causes and a fifth from a drug overdose The sixth death was a suicide. Was it the media that ran amok in the frenzy of those first post-Katrina days? Or were some of the evacuees themselves at fault for getting carried away, especially when put before a television camera? Or were local officials most guilty of exaggeration? Wasn't it 10,000 bodies that Mayor Ray Nagin said would be found when the waters receded? How come the latest death toll is just over 1,000, a tenth of his early estimate?And wasn't it Mayor Nagin who went on national television three days after the storm and declared that the crowds left behind in New Orleans were somehow degenerating into an "almost animalistic state"? He said on The Oprah Winfrey Show that people left behind in the Superdome had for days been "watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."Leading the effort now to separate fact from fiction has been the New Orleans hometown newspaper, the Times-Picayune, which just last week was able to return from exile in Baton Rouge, an hour to the west, and re-inhabit its former headquarters."Few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence," was the conclusion of a recent investigation in the paper. There was also something about sharks cruising down Canal Street - ghoulish and obviously absurd.Questions are now urgently being asked about some of the other stories that were circulating in the first days of the tragedy, which together created a picture of a city in outright anarchy, succumbing not just to Katrina but also to humankind's basest instincts. There were rapes and murders in the Superdome, bodies piled high in the basement of the Convention Centre and snipers firing on rescue helicopters.Six weeks later, it seems many of the claims that were trafficked in New Orleans and amplified by the media had little or no evidence to support them. As manifold investigations into the storm and its aftermath get under way in the months ahead, both at the state and federal levels, part of the spotlight will be on finding out how much of what was reported was legend and how much was truth.Whether anyone will be able fairly to apportion blame, however, is another thing. The image was deliberately cultivated of a metropolis that was not quite normal - a little out there - as well as vaguely scurrilous and irresponsible.No wonder, perhaps, that just days after Hurricane Katrina roared across the Louisiana coastline weird and unlikely tales began to emerge.
Remember the crocodiles roaming the Ninth Ward? Pictures of them were even posted on the internet, but it turned out they were taken years ago in Congo. Black magic and ghost tours were touted to tourists, while the city's hanging moss and above-ground cemeteries inspired its once-resident celebrity author Anne Rice to write her vampire books. (Or was there?) Rumour and myth were always common currency in New Orleans. "Voodoo Party Tonight", it said in marker pen, giving a time and place.
Today, taking a break in a Bourbon Street bar, the talk turns to the same fridge What was that all about? somebody asks "Oh," replies another patron "That was bullshit Some freaky old man with a shopping trolley wrote that I saw him do it." There was no voodoo party. Before the order came into place, numerous tourists were causing damage to the fragile site.This is not the first time erratic weather has wrought disaster on the region In April 2004, at least six people died in a mudslide. In 1997 and 1998, El Ni?aused massive damage to the economy by blocking transportation.The heavy rains have now retreated and repair to the tracks is expected to take three days.. When the Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo was sworn into office in 2001, he deliberately held a ceremony at the terraces and temples of the Inca citadel, a move he hoped would boost the country's tourism.A new ruling in 2001 mandated that tourists can trek throughout the area only if they are partnered with a licensed tour operator or a professional guide.