KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana |Katrina's Death Toll

Katrina's Death Toll

So far, the official toll across five states is at 710, with New Orleans accounting for most of the dead. Those numbers, while horrific, raised the possibility that earlier fears of fatalities reaching 10,000 or more might not prove true.

If casualties rose that high, it would place the devastation in New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast with such disasters as the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 or the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Hurricane Andrew in 1992, up until now the most expensive hurricane, killed just 26 people, most in southern Florida.

The nation's top 10 natural disasters at a glance:

Hurricane Katrina's latest death toll makes it the nation's seventh deadliest natural disaster, so far:

1. Galveston (Texas) Hurricane, 1900, estimated 8,000 deaths
2. Great Okeechobee Hurricane in Florida, 1928, estimated 2,500-plus
3. Johnstown, Pa., Flood, 1889, estimated 2,200-plus
4. Louisiana Hurricane, 1893, 2,000-plus
5. South Carolina-Georgia Hurricane, 1893, 1,000-2,000
6. Great New England Hurricane, 1938, 720
7. Hurricane Katrina, with the latest toll at 710.
8. San Francisco Earthquake, 1906, 700
9. Georgia-South Carolina Hurricane, 1881, 700
10. Tri-State Tornado in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, 1925, 695