ACCOUNTABILITY CORNER

As Hurricane Rita storms the Gulf Coast, officials might consider tempering their concern with rhetorical restraint. Katrina’s death toll passed 1,000 last week, and new flooding complicates the draining. But far fewer people died than some predicted, and the city is drying out sooner too.

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“It wouldn’t be unreasonable to have 10,000.”

-- New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, talking about the projected death toll on NBC, Sept. 5

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“My guess is that it will start at 10,000.”

-- Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Sept. 2

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“I pray to God we don’t see those numbers. My gut is we don’t.”

-- Michael Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to Associated Press, Sept. 9

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“Our biggest focus right now is the search and rescue and unwatering the city. That’s probably three to six months out.”

-- Col. Richard Wagenaar, the Army Corps of Engineers’ senior official in New Orleans, to Fox News, Aug. 30

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“We are looking at months before the pumping starts.”

-- Robert Bea, a UC Berkeley professor of civil engineering, to the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 2

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“It could take up to six months to get the water out of New Orleans.”

-- Associated Press report of comments by Dan Craig, FEMA’s director of recovery, Sept. 2