Let’s hope this is merely pessimism.  From the Times-Gazette of Shelbyville, Mississippi:

A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there.

"DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.

40,000.  That apparently doesn’t include NOLA.  Good God.