WAVELAND, Miss. -- When Brian Mollere saw what was left of the house where his 80-year-old mother sought refuge from Hurricane Katrina -- crushed by the gigantic storm surge -- he was certain Jane Mollere was dead.

But until this week, he didn't have a body to prove it.

Some 200 or more people are still listed as missing on the Mississippi Coast; by Wednesday there were still 19 bodies in the temporary morgue in next-door Harrison County. Because of the extent of the disaster and the chaotic aftermath, it's hard to pinpoint numbers of missing, particularly in Louisiana. Of those still unaccounted for, authorities say, most are probably scattered across the country in shelters, hotels and other housing, yet to be reunited with relatives.

Others, like Jane Mollere, are dead -- swept out to sea, buried under debris or lying in morgues awaiting positive identification.

Nearly nine anguishing weeks after Katrina walloped the Gulf Coast, Mollere's prominent Mississippi coastal family has found closure. After weeks of submitting DNA samples and pestering coroners and FEMA workers, the Molleres were finally given the remains of ''Miss Jane,'' found five days after the storm and kept unnamed since in the morgue.

Now Brian Mollere, his five siblings and other family members can make plans to bury the well-known retired hardware and jewelry store owner and real estate agent.

''Now it's really stressful because it took so long (for officials to release the body),'' said Mollere, 50, who is staying in a trailer on the concrete slab, across from Waveland City Hall, where the home he shared with his mother stood.

''It was like she was on vacation, but now reality has set in,'' he said. Miss Jane, he said, who breathed with the aid of an oxygen tank, did not want to leave their home as Katrina approached. But he thought she would be safer at his sister's house, which was on ground a bit higher in neighboring Bay St. Louis. His sister, a nurse, worked during the storm; her husband and children, who were in the house, managed to escape.

For weeks Miss Jane was among the 217 Mississippi Gulf Coast residents listed as missing after Katrina roared ashore August 29, killing at least 228 in Mississippi and 1,061 in Louisiana. Her case illustrates the herculean task that faces officials trying to locate the missing and identify bodies -- and the distress of family members and friends who wait for news day after day.

'A lot worse than Camille'

As recently as last week, for example, Mississippi officials were still finding bodies.

So staggering has been Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove's workload that he has turned part of his Gulfport office into a makeshift bedroom.

Most of the Mississippi deaths occurred in the coastal counties of Hancock, where Bay St. Louis and Waveland are located, and Harrison, home of Pass Christian, Long Beach, Gulfport and Biloxi.

Of the 1,185 Mississippians originally reported missing through the victims assistance center of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, or DMORT, 968 have been accounted for, Hargrove said. No firm figure for Louisiana's missing was available.