Morticians Prepare for 40,000 bodies

Meanwhile, a National Guardsman showed a reporter the many bodies piled up in the New Orleans Convention Center, including in the freezer.

"Don't step in that blood ? it's contaminated," Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."

Then he shined the light on a smaller human figure under a white sheet next to the elderly man.

"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."

Continued the solider: "There's an old woman," pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.

The Guardsmen stationed at the center say there are between 30 and 40 bodies in the freezer.

"It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.