WASHINGTON, D.C. &#$151; Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Sunday the federal government is in control of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans after days in which authorities failed to reach stranded refugees and evacuate the city.
Chertoff declined to estimate the death toll from the hurricane and its aftermath, but conceded that untold numbers of people could be found dead in swamped homes, floating in the water and in the facilities used as shelters.
"We need to prepare the country for what's coming ... we are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in floods, it is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine," Chertoff said on "Fox News Sunday."
The federal government has been harshly criticized for a slow and ineffectual response to the crisis, with days passing before food and water reached thousands who took shelter in the Superdome, the convention center and on highways.
Chertoff said authorities are in place to handle the crisis.
"We are in control of what's going on in the city," he said, while cautioning that major challenges lay ahead.
"We are still in the middle of an emergency," he said on CNN's Late Edition. "This is not the time when we can draw a sigh of relief."
