Nursing Home Tragedy

Louisiana officials filed criminal charges on Tuesday against the owners of the home where 34 patients died, although a lawyer representing the couple said they had behaved responsibly.

On Wednesday, the traces of the tragedy inside St. Rita's home in St. Bernard's Parish east of New Orleans where the 34 deaths occurred were still visible.

Beds were overturned and wheelchairs were stacked up near windows, perhaps indicating desperate attempts to escape by those who died. Water marks indicated the rooms were flooded to within 1 foot (.34 meter) of the ceiling. The names of patients were still on the doors, pictures of them on walls and stuffed animals and other belongings mired in mud on the floor.

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said the owners had turned down an offer from local officials to take the patients out by bus and did not bother to call in an ambulance service with which they had a contract. Their lawyer said some of the patients were far too frail to have been moved and would have died had that been attempted.