Death toll jumps to 1577.

State officials say that for weeks after it made landfall August 29th, Hurricane Katrina kept claiming Louisiana victims in other states.

The state's official Katrina toll jumped 22 percent to 1,577 deaths, when the Department of Health and Hospitals added 281 more victims to the count. Texas alone accounted for 223 deaths of the increase.

And the work is far from finished.

Only 32 states, representing 480 deaths, have filed their reports with Louisiana officials.

State Medical Examiner Louis Cataldie said he and his staff are preparing to examine every case to determine whether each death was indeed storm-related.