Reply #16: More news: It looks like the media (WABC) finally got onto Bolivar Peninsula [View All]

[chill_wind]

video:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=weather&id=6398156

story:

By N.J. Burkett

BOLIVAR PENINSULA, TEXAS (WABC) -- How could anyone have survived?

That was the question rescuers asked themselves when they returned to the Bolivar Peninsula. As we rolled through the silent streets under a brilliant blue Texas sky, I was asking myself the same question. Galveston was wrecked, I thought, but Bolivar was wiped-out.

We'd heard the stories--that hundreds of residents ignored the evacuation orders, tried to leave at the last minute, but were forced to revert to Plan A as the storm cut-off their escape. Twelve hundred people lived here, but at least one-third of the population chose to ride out the hurricane. Authorities are desperately trying to account for everyone, but they can't. Search and rescue teams made plans to scan the shoreline with thermal imaging devices and walk twenty-seven miles of beaches. What was once a thriving Gulf Coast tourist destination had become a destination for cadaver dogs.

GO TO BOLIVAR. GET THERE ANY WAY YOU CAN. That was the email message from WABC-TV Assignment Manager, Kim Dillon, in New York. It was 8:30AM and I saw this one coming. "I'm already on my way," I wrote back. And I was--hurtling down I-45 towards Galveston in the rented Chevy Trailblazer with our photographer on this trip, John Carrozelli.

(...)

Fisherman Pat Murphy was unable to escape the hurricane, but managed to survive. I found him aboard his damaged trawler, Proud Mary. "Well, some people got lucky," I said. "And a lot of people didn't," he replied, sadly. He told me how a friend, who had weathered the storm with him, watched his own wife get swept away.

"I don't know how many others died," he said. "But it's more than they're letting-on."

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=weather&id=6398156

Wayne Dolcefino finally got access as well:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=weather/hurricane&id=6393943




"Missing and Presumed Dead"

http://firedoglake.com/2008/09/19/missing-and-presumed-dead/