Body found, bringing Katrina toll to 1,321

[MaineDem]

BATON ROUGE, La. --The body of another Hurricane Katrina victim was found this week, bringing the number of verified deaths caused by the storm to 1,321.

The body search in Louisiana, where 1,072 people died because of Katrina, was called off Oct. 3, but emergency workers and residents returning to destroyed homes continue to find the dead.

Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals reported the latest recovered body Friday, but did not provide any details. It said 1,095 bodies have been found in the state since Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, but some deaths were deemed unrelated to the storm.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/12/17/body_found_bringing_katrina_toll_to_1321/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News

I can't believe the death toll is so low.

[BikeWriter]

1. Many were washed out to sea.

[chelsea0011]

3. Do you think? I have no ideas but why is that months after Katrina,

or Corrina as one thinks the name is, 1000's of people are unaccounted for? Where the hell are these people and why can't the government get this under control?

[BikeWriter]

4. I read an account of boats, cars and houses being on islands there...

If all that were washed away hundreds of bodies probably were, too.

[rodeodance]

9. yes, I believe that happened to some.--there are many missing

persons yet.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. A neighbor was down in all of that.. I'm gonna quiz him today and

get a better take on this if I can.












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[fasttense]

5. I heard on Air America that there are still 4,000 people missing

in the wake of Katrina and they can't account for them. Sooo, no one really has a handel on the number of dead.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. The official government tally is almost 6400, 1300 being children.

[lostnfound]

6. The similarities to the big bad "Communist states" (USSR &China) never end

didn't our media and our government constantly doubt disaster death tolls coming out of the old Russia and China, saying that they didn't have a free media and they lied to their people about all the bad news.

[GR]

7. Randy Rhodes Says 6,000 Missing...She Assumes They're Dead...

that means that 7300 or thereabouts most likely died but no one is allowed to know this because it would take away from the "glory" of the 3000 dead in 9/11. The Katrina disaster cannot be used by Bush to flog for more war and in fact shows his feet of clay so it is kept under cover...

[localroger]

10. Why the death toll is so low

They didn't search the attics. It's that simple.

NOLA was not hit by a tidal surge; it was a levee break, and it took time for the city to fill with water. With water coming up an inch or two a minute you have time to get out of the way. When the water gets close to the ceiling, where do you go? Outside the winds are still howling at 130 MPH; if you go outside you will likely drown. So you get in the attic. You have the time to do this even if you're old or a child.

Once you're in the attic, if the water keeps coming up past the top of the roof, as it did for many square miles of the city, you die. If you can't break out the next day when the sun comes up you die. Did you remember to take hand tools up there? Are you strong enough to break out through half-inch plywood and shingles as the temperature goes to 120F, in the dark, without power tools? If not, you die.

The folks who blasted through town painting all those X's on buildings were specifically told not to search the attics. This always sounded insane to me, because the attic is where you would most likely be if Katrina killed you. I could never see this as anything but a naked grab to keep the numbers down. Now, months later, as people are allowed back in they are starting to find those bodies. The authorities are shocked, shocked they will tell you at the horror of this. But it was inevitable. There was no other possible outcome.

How many bodies are in these attics? Thousands would be a very reasonable estimate. The news can show you a picture of a once-inundated house, a house knocked off its foundation, or a deserted street, but the news cannot convey what it is like to drive through these neighborhoods for miles and miles. Not just thousands but hundreds of thousands of houses were inundated. If less than ten thousand people died in all of that it's a goddamn miracle.

The people who have relatives who got out and returned are being found. The people who had no families are not. Their bodies will rot in the attic until the day the bulldozers finally come, and then it will be up to the demo crews to notice the bones mixed in with the rubble. I am not optimistic that there will ever be a proper accounting.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

11. Gee, wonder why they were told not to search the attics...

It sure is insane, to those who want people to be saved, and bodies to be found quickly, maybe not insane to those who might benefit by covering up the actual death count...

[OneBlueSky]

12. tragically, you are correct . . . and most will never be found . . .

since they will inevitably decide to bulldoze the Lower Ninth Ward . . . this has been and remains a human tragedy of historic magnitude in this country, and BushCo needs to be held to account for what happened . . . yet one more grounds for impeachment on an ever lengthening list . . .

[uppityperson]

13. On searching NO houses

First pass you knock, look in windows, if you can get inside you search everywhere and mark that you did so. If no one home, door locked, can't see EVERYWHERE, mark the X with NO (no entry) for followup team to search. Which didn't happen. (this info is from a friend who has done these searches, properly, in another disaster)

NO is a pretty big town/city, lots of houses to search. As the water/sludge went away, the searchers could look in new places but there are lots of places to search and not enough searchers to do it properly. FEMA eventually swung a deal with Nagin that they would only search houses flooded more than 5-6 ft (I can't remember exactly which and am not taking time to look it up as the difference doesn't matter right now) OR if there were signs of life (showing I suppose that someone survived for a while and might still be alive?). Then there is MS, a whole 'nother pot of apples. Debris piles are still all over. People washed away, have buildings on them, it is a mess.

This is nuts. There will not be a proper counting of the dead who are still in place, much less those washed out to sea.