NEW ORLEANS — No one knew much about him. He was a black man with close-cropped hair who looked to be in his 40s. He had a high school class ring. He had been at the convention center for four days, no different from thousands of others.
Friday night, he lost it. While others tried to sleep on the sweltering sidewalk around him, he began to mumble to himself, kicking aside piles of trash. He yelled something about his missing wife. Just before midnight, a police car screamed down Convention Center Drive, and from there, the stories diverge.
Some said he just ended it -- ran out in front of the car. Some said he was trying to flag it down for help when it clipped him. Some said he had a gun and was either shot or run over.
In some fashion, he died in the street, his blood draining toward the curb and congealing under a pile of crushed orange juice cartons and dirty diapers. He was still there Saturday afternoon, and chances are he is still there today.
"Right where he fell. Like roadkill," said Larry Martin, 35, another evacuee.
Until now, the nation has focused on the survivors. But at some point in coming days, as New Orleans continues to depopulate, the city will reach a tipping point. There may be more dead people here than living as the human exodus continues. And no one knows what will be done with the bodies.
Paramedics walked Saturday in front of the convention center pushing a gurney, but did not pause at the man's body. They were trying to rescue an elderly woman who was bleeding from her right leg and had not gotten out of her chair in three days.
Twin-blade helicopters thundered overhead, and they were trying to get her to a hospital in Lafayette.
"I know it's a tragic situation," said Miles Watts, a city paramedic. "But we need to save people who are alive first. We're going to have to deal with the dead ones later."
Officials are devising a plan to cope with the dead, but it is still in its infancy.
Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who predicted that the death toll could reach into the thousands, said Saturday that officials were assembling refrigerated 18-wheelers that would serve as roaming morgues.
Nagin said it might be impossible to find enough room to bury the bodies; they might all be cremated.
