New Orleans flood waters contaminated with e. coli

[Rhiannon12866]

New Orleans flood waters contaminated with e. coli, official in office of Mayor Ray Nagin tells CNN.

Latest story I could find:

Deputy chief: New Orleans 'a hazard'
But he sees progress: 'We moved from chaos to organized chaos'

Tuesday, September 6, 2005 Posted: 0145 GMT (0945 HKT)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Saying the city was "completely destroyed" and "a hazard," the New Orleans deputy police chief urged remaining residents Monday to get out because there was no power, drinkable water or food supply.

Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley said thousands of people were still in the city a week after Hurricane Katrina ripped across southeast Louisiana.

"We are working with them to try to convince them that there is no reason -- no jobs, no food -- no reason for them to stay," Riley said.

"We advise people that this city has been destroyed. It has been completely destroyed."

Riley said law enforcement wasn't involved "in taking people off the street and forcing them out of the city at this point. There may come a time when we do that."

Most of the streets are filled with stagnant, fetid waters streaked with iridescent oil and smelling of garbage, human waste and death.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/katrina.new.orleans/index.html?section=cnn_latest

[Triana]

1. that's from feces....

...ick! Hardly a surprise. Just talked to a 'refugee'. She says they won't let ANYONE in with open cuts - they are not allowed to shave before going in.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Yes, I know. Hardly a surprise, but still really awful!

Going into where? A shelter? I feel so terrible for people being forced to live this way. There's absolutely no excuse for it!!!:grr:

[whistle]

2. E. coli introduced from where?

[Matariki]

3. feces in water

backed up sewers, etc.

[shanti]

4. fecal matter

n/t

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I just posted the latest story I could find on this.

What this means is raw sewage.

[Lecky]

15. E.coli is pretty much everywhere...

but if one's immune system isn't up to par (for example the elderly and children) it can cause severe bloody diarrhea or worse...

[struggle4progress]

44. The fecal coliforms themselves are often harmless but indicate sewage ..

.. contamination, and the subsequent risk of other serious diseases such as typhoid or hepatitis that can be spread through fecal matter

[kestrel91316]

45. Nicely put. Specifically, in water analysis E. coli is used as an

indicator for potential Salmonella contamination, IIRC (my microbiology of water and sewage studies were nearly 30 yrs ago).

[0007]

16. shit!

[FloridaPat]

5. E. Coli is in eggs, human intestines, cows intestines, and has even

managed to show up on fruit. It's a very common disease. It would be suprising it wasn't there. In fact, it might have been in the lake before the hurricane - run off from farms with cows.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. That's true, but people have also died from eating food contaminated

with it. I just posted the latest story on this that I could find. Apparently the city is flooded with really fetid water.;(

[Green Mountain Dem]

9. Why in hell....

are they pumping it back into the Lake "untreated" ?? If the whole lake becomes contaminated won't that just make matters worse for the future? It seems like the Army Corps of Engineers could come up with a way to treat this water before it gets back into the lake! Just sayin...

[kestrel91316]

46. Sewage treatment plants have all been wiped out in the city. You can't

just whip one together in a few days. Some perspective: this crap has no doubt been going into these waters all along, but nobody gave a rat's a-- until now.

[formercia]

10. No shit, Dick Tracy

So, everybody out, don't pay your morgage and taxes so we can forclose. Developers waiting in the wings as I speak.........

[gapower]

43. Yeah, developers named Halliburton.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. well duh!

[Rhiannon12866]

13. CNN sent this out as breaking news...

That's the only reason I posted it. But you're right...:dunce:

[formercia]

12. Oysters ought to be fat this fall

plenty to filter out.

[Lochloosa]

14. Man...I just fell out of my Half Shell...

Damn

[northzax]

17. I think e. Coli

is about the least of the worries about what's in the water. e. Coli preys on the weak, the elderly, the very young and those with compromised immune systems. Let's be brutal: those people are already dead.

Not to downplay it, e. Coli is the canary in the mineshaft here, but there are petro-chemicals, mercury, lead, other radiologicals, typhus, tetanus, and 500 other deadly things in that water worse for you than e. Coli, which can be removed by boiling.

[Bridget Burke]

18. "e. Coli happens"

Once seen on a t-shirt. Who says microbiologists have no sense of humor?

[kestrel91316]

47. Not "e. Coli"................it's E. coli. AKA Escherichia coli. The genus

name is capitalized and the species name is not.

[Submariner]

19. Don't get behind an airboat in NO

The ecoli will be launched in the aerosol spray caused by the airboats and this crap will get int the mucus membranes of nasal passages and lungs. That is a health hazard waiting to happen.

CNN just reported lab test results of 200,000 units of bacteria in NO street water, when the standard is 200 units.

[thecrow]

Official: E. Coli bacteria detected in floodwater

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/katrina.impact/index.html

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Floodwater in New Orleans is contaminated with E. coli bacteria, a city official told CNN Tuesday.

The official in Mayor Ray Nagin's office declined to be identified.

The failures of the levee system after Hurricane Katrina's onslaught left about 80 percent of the city flooded with water up to 20 feet deep -- water that became a toxic mix of chemicals, garbage, corpses and human waste. (See video of restarted pumping station -- 2:14)

E. coli comes from human and animal waste and can be found in untreated sewage.

MORE: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/katrina.impact/index.html

[soothsayer]

20. This is not really a surprise, is it?

[Brundle_Fly]

21. nope.

I imagine there is much worse things festering in there.

[Karenina]

31. Cotton Mouths.

:scared:

[Sequoia]

34. Copper Heads

Some news I heard Thrusday night in Biloxi went sort of like this "We see dead bodies and some dogs and two snakes. The snakes are alive, one's a Copper Head".

[Ganja Ninja]

23. It was a slam dunk.

Did they really have to even run a test?

[kestrel91316]

48. Yeah, I thought it was a little, uh, SILLY. But they have to tell the

public I suppose. They have been looking at ALL the microbes, trust me. Bacteria, viruses, protozoans, all our little friends.

[CottonBear]

22. E coli and coli bacteria are in all raw sewage.

I've taken well water samples for E-coli testing. It was in a built up area of small lots with both septic tanks and wells. There is NO WAY that E-coli would not be in the water.

[leveymg]

26. Dump a corpse in a well, and E-coli will surely poison the water.

Human and animal stomachs are filled with it. After a few days, the germs that break down food in the gut spill out and spread throughout the surrounding water.

Enough bodies, and this can become a serious health hazard to anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with the water.

[pursuivant]

32. It naturally occurs in your bowels

Normally, it's harmless. Water chemists/biologists use it as a marker for the presence of sewage in water, because it's easier to detect than the nastier things found in human waste.

[FourStarDemocrat]

40. Right, but E-coli from cattle does kill. n/t

[gapower]

41. E. coli is just an indicator of a problem

There are really just a few unusual strains of E. coli (like "O157:H7") that kill - not particularly because they're from cattle but because they happen to create a toxin that causes diarrhea.

The reason the media talk about this strain in cattle is because humans get infected from contaminated beef.

E. coli is always present in poop. It usually does not cause disease. However its presence means there is poop in the water. That is an indicator that other microorganisms, some of which do cause disease, are probably also present.

[kestrel91316]

51. E. coli O157:H7 produces shigatoxin, the toxin normally produced

by another fecal-oral nasty known as Shigella. This toxin is what makes these bugs so very dangerous.

[kestrel91316]

50. Not the normal strain. The killer strain (E. coli O1H57?) is rare but

our modern food processing techniques allow one cow with it to contaminate millions of pounds of ground beef. Plain old E. coli is no big deal other than aesthetics and the propensity to cause transient gastroenteritis.

[iverglas]

55. rare but not impossible: E. coli O157:H7

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/SS197

The purpose of this fact sheet is to inform the public about important aspects of the exposure of humans to E. coli 0157:H7, an emerging pathogen. This feces-transmitted microorganism has been causing illness since 1982 and its increased occurrence worldwide has become a public concern. In this fact sheet we will discuss briefly the organism's health impact, how people can be infected, the modes of dissemination, associated risk factors, and measures for preventing the infection.

E. coli and E. coli 0157:H7

Escherichia coli are bacteria that normally inhabit the intestines of humans and animals. Most strains are known to be harmless, but several of them can cause mild to serious disease. One strain in particular, named 0157:H7, can cause severe diarrhea and in some cases lead to serious complications, even death. 0157:H7 is known to be present in the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, mainly dairy calves.

An outbreak of disease from this pathogen in Walkerton, Ontario, in 2000, was our own Canadian experience with the mishandling of a public health disaster and the effects that cutting public budgets can have in the occurrence of those disasters:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/walkerton/

Our "common sense revolution" right-wing Premier Mike Harris did a fair Bush imitation at the time.

"We have a terrible tragedy here."

With those words, then Ontario Premier Mike Harris waded into the Walkerton, Ont., water crisis on Friday, May 26, 2000. He addressed a crowd of reporters and residents in the normally quiet town in Ontario's rural heartland – a part of the province that normally gears up for a flood of fun seekers at this time of year.

Instead, Walkerton began the transition into the town "where those kids died from E. coli." It's not what anyone wanted, but it was the end result. Reporters from around North America descended on the area, trying to get to the bottom of Canada's worst-ever outbreak of E. coli contamination. Seven people died from drinking contaminated water. Hundreds suffered from the symptoms of the disease, not knowing if they too would die.

According to the local medical officer of health, it all could have been prevented. Dr. Murray McQuigge stunned the country with his revelation on CBC Radio on May 25, 2000 that the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission knew there was a problem with the water several days before they told the public.

Change a few words, multiply the numbers by a thousand, and what have you got?

What right wing governments do to increase the risk of disaster, and then don't do to deal with the disaster when it happens.

The E. coli in the water in the Katrina disaster zone could make people ill -- some who are already fragile could die. Since E. coli 0157:H7 does tend to come from cattle feces (Walkerton is in a farming area), it is probably not prevalent in the flood waters. But any E. coli is something to avoid in situations like this.


edited -- oops, that's "O157", not "0157"

[kestrel91316]

49. Correct.

[Jackpine Radical]

24. No shit. (nt)

[pursuivant]

33. Actually, all too much of it . . .

[UpInArms]

25. here's what the CDC is saying:

2:37pm 09/06/05 CDC OFFICIALS CONCERNED ABOUT DIARRHEAL, RESPIRATORY DISEASE

2:38pm 09/06/05 CDC: UNKNOWN YET WHETHER FLOOD WATER CONTAINS TOXIC CHEMICAL

2:37pm 09/06/05 CDC:'ENORMOUS PRESSURE' EXPECTED ON RELIEF CITIES' HOSPITALS

2:37pm 09/06/05 CDC: MAINTAINING PRE-STORM CHRONIC CARE 'BIGGEST CHALLENGE'

[BiggJawn]

27. So they were expecting Gerolsteiner?

DUH!
Don't recall anyone telling people that it was cool to drink the stuff.

[mcscajun]

28. In other news...Generalissimo Francisco Franco is Still Dead.

So's Gilligan.

And about 10-40,000 Louisianans, + hundreds more around the Gulf.

Not diminishing the E. Coli story, but Duh. We knew this would turn up.

[triguy46]

29. this is not news

e. coli should be expected to be found in the flood waters...what would be news is if e. coli were not found.

[Lilyhoney]

30. My mother in law got a case of e-coli last year and almost died.

After 2 months of treatment her kidneys started to work again.

She recieved very good medical care.

I am afraid that alot of people will not be so lucky.

[pursuivant]

36. That's a recent strain

In the last 10 years of so, a toxic strain of e. coli has emerged that causes diahrrea and other problems. It's associated with cattle and/or contaminated beef.

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/escherichia_coli.jsp

For the most part, it's innocuous, as long as it stays in your digestive tract.

[kestrel91316]

52. She didn't get normal ordinary E. coli. She got STEC, aka Shigatoxic

E. coli, aka E. coli O157:H7. (it's all starting to come back to me now, my human microbiology is a bit rusty)

[WindRavenX]

35. illness has not struck the area yet

In the next few days, we will begin to see the emergence of probably a lot of bad infectious diseases...

[CountAllVotes]

37. I've been saying that for days now

but no one seemed to particularly care nor listen. They'll be learning the hard way on this one, and it will be BIG TIME!

:kick:

[Sgent]

38. Breaking....

Hydrogen found in flood water.

E. Coli is so common as to usually not be tested for -- it is assumed.

In addition, simple boiling or iodine treatment will get rid of it.

Many foriegn countries have E Coli in their drinking water. It bothers you for a day or two, then nothing.

[HannibalBarca]

39. Strain??

I wonder what strain of E.Coli has been found? If it is 0157 then its bad.

[gapower]

42. Just generic coliforms (mostly E. coli)

This is not a specific test for 0157. It's just the usual fecal coliform test that is done on drinking water or other water. The test is not specific to any strain. In fact this test is so generic that even several other poop-associated bacteria besides E coli will cause it to come up positive.

On the other hand, if much 0157 were to be found in the New Orleans floodwaters, that would be a strange coincidence suggesting major unfriendly human interference beyond the natural catastrophe.

[kestrel91316]

53. Don't they just plate it out?? E. coli is a distinctive looking

(and smelling) bug. Greyish colony on NA, smells like a garbage can? Do they do some other sort of high-tech testing now?? Nutrient agar is so simple.

[Rhiannon12866]

54. Infections kill 3 after Katrina; others at risk

I heard this on CNN, today. This story still has legs and is becoming more serious and deadly by the hour...

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three people have died from bacterial infections in Gulf states after Hurricane Katrina, and tests confirm that the water flooding New Orleans is a stew of sewage-borne bacteria, federal officials said on Wednesday.

A fourth person in the Gulf region is suspected to be infected with Vibrio vulnificus, a common marine bacteria, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told reporters, citing reports from state health officials in Mississippi and Texas.

"This does not represent an outbreak," Gerberding told a news conference. "It does not spread from person to person," she said.

"People who are compromised in immunity can sometimes develop very severe infections from these bacteria. We see cases of this from time to time along the coast," she added.

And tests of the waters flooding New Orleans show it is, as expected, loaded with raw sewage.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson said all the tests of waters in flooded residential areas of New Orleans exceeded by at least 10 times the safe levels of E. coli and other so-called coliform bacteria, found in the human gut and used as an indicator of sewage contamination.

They also have high levels of lead, Johnson said.

"Human contact with the floodwaters should be avoided as much as possible," Johnson told the news conference.

"This may seem obvious ... but no one should drink the floodwaters, especially children," Johnson said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-09-07T205133Z_01_SPI774989_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-HEALTH-DC.XML

[Rhiannon12866]

56. Believe it or not, FOX News gave the most detailed on-line report on this.

And the most disturbing. I've seen coverage of it, all day, on CNN and MSNBC, of the bodies and the unspeakable sewage, and they even had a spokeswoman for the Center for Disease Control on, discussing the proposed water treatment. The most depressing aspect seems to be the necessary repair and overhaul to the antiquated NO sewage treatment system, which will have to be updated and repaired before anyone can live there in safety. Anyway, you can read this, if you wish. I thought it was surprisingly forthcoming, for FOX "News..." You can skip the part about how Cheney found the effort "impressive," and of the abandoned dog. ;( I just posted this as an update about the water quality...

New Orleans Forced Evacuations Loom
Thursday, September 08, 2005

NEW ORLEANS — More stragglers seemed willing to flee the filthy water and stench of death Thursday as increasingly insistent rescuers made what may be their last peaceful pass through swamped New Orleans (search) before using force.

"Some are finally saying, 'I've had enough," said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (search) spokesman Michael Keegan. "They're getting dehydrated. They are running out of food. There are human remains in different houses. The smells mess with your psyche."

Across a flooded city where as many as 10,000 holdouts were believed to be stubbornly staying put, police made it clear in orders barked from front porches and through closed doors that they would return — next time, getting tough.

Police said they were 80 percent done with their scan of the city for voluntary evacuees, after which they planned to begin carrying out Mayor Ray Nagin's (search) order to forcibly remove remaining residents from a city filled with disease-carrying water, broken gas lines and rotting corpses.

"The ones who wanted to leave, I would say most of them are out," said Detective Sgt. James Imbrogglio. "There may be a few left, so we're going to go check one of our last areas that's underwater today and then hopefully that will be it."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168857,00.html