Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

Despite government pledges to finally begin collecting the dead floating in flooded streets and hidden away in devastated homes, the official death toll in Louisiana still stood at only 71.

In neighboring Mississippi, officials said 170 people were confirmed dead, but some said the toll could top 1,000 there.

More than a million people may have been driven from their homes -- many perhaps permanently -- with hundreds of thousands taking refuge in shelters, hotels and private homes across the country following one of America's worst natural disasters.

New Orleans, a historic city and longtime tourist mecca, has been largely abandoned by its residents, but the streets are increasingly filled with troops, police and news media.

And the next problem is those who stayed behind:

Firefighters said the flooding prevented them from getting to many fires that were breaking out in the city.

They said that because there was no electricity, people were using candles for light in the old, wooden buildings that make up many New Orleans neighborhoods.

"Of course we're using candles. What else we gonna do? We got no electricity," said Junior Jones, 71, whose house in central New Orleans was on fire.

He said he had not evacuated. "I'm sick, in a wheelchair. I could hardly walk. Where am I going to go?

Perhaps he can explain that to Mr. Brown, before he loses his job.

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), a Republican from Mississippi who lost his coastal home in the storm, said Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown's job is in jeopardy.

"If he doesn't solve a couple of problems that we've got right now he ain't going to be able to hold the job, because what I'm going to do to him ain't going to be pretty," Lott said on CBS.

And the Eloquence in the Face of Disaster (and Excellence in Anti-Spin Technigue) Award goes to Mr. Aaron Broussard. Again:

Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish president, told the CBS "Early Show" there were people still at risk in his community.

"Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy needs to stand trial before Congress today," he said." "So I'm asking Congress please investigate this now.

"Take whatever idiot they have at the top, give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."