Katrina victim's body found in attic (Searchers expect to find up to 400)

[sabra]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/06/katrina.bodies/index.html

Katrina victim's body found in attic
Searchers resume operations, expect to find up to 400 missing

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Three days after officials inspected a storm-damaged home spray-painted with "0" -- indicating no bodies inside -- cadaver dogs led searchers to a victim of Hurricane Katrina in the attic.

Before dying, the man apparently was trying to crawl out of an air-conditioning vent to escape rising floodwaters, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, Louisiana's medical examiner.

Cataldie said searchers expect to find up to 400 more bodies of storm victims still hidden inside New Orleans homes six months after the storm.

Cataldie said Monday that cadaver-searching dogs are critical to the search and recovery missions. (Watch cadaver dogs scour buildings -- :47)

[MadMaddie]

1. 400 is a conservative number....if there are 3000 people still

unofficially missing....400 isn't even close to the bodies they will find..

Question is will they report their findings accurately?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. I read that the medical examiner

has estimated 500 washed away.

[arcane1]

9. accurately? Isn't the corpse-hiding Funeralgate company in charge?

they'll low-ball the number to a fraction of the real count, and grind up the extra corpses for dog-food :grr:

[rocktivity]

2. We'll never get a realistic Katrina death toll

if only because it looks like it will eclipse 9/11's.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Mabus]

11. You nailed that one

How would it look for the so-called war pResident to have had more Americans die because of a hurricane they knew was coming, they knew where it was going to hit and they knew what the possible consequences could be. This just shoots down their excuses for their incompentency involving 9/11. This shows, even when they know what city is going to be hit, the time frame when the hurricane would come ashore and the consequences that they did abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Nada. They didn't give a shit. They can't afford to have a high death toll known.

[allisonthegreat]

28. I guess this is the first of many..

It saddens me. I wonder how much of this could have been avoided with proper vehicles and notification. We will never know. Probably a lot of sick, elderly, and disabled folks...

[Mabus]

32. I share your sadness

Just imagine how much could have been done had Homeland Security coordinated First Responders and their equipment. I mean, the radios and other on-ground communications were limited, and in some areas non-existent, just like they were after 9/11. This pResidency has done more to harm America than any terrorist ever has or will.

Maybe that last sentence will get me a free stay a Club Gitmo but someone had to say it.

[geomon666]

3. ugh.

They might as well just knock the house down. There's no way that smell is ever going to leave.

[Mabus]

4. This deserves to be on the front page

American lives were lost on American soil AGAIN because of this Administration. The American public needs to be reminded of this disgrace every day until something is done and people are held accountable. Just like we need to continually remind the American public of the incompetency of these people before 9/11.

This is so fucking unacceptable. This is the 21st century not the stone age. While Bush is dreaming about sending a man to Mars in the future there are many who don't know what the future holds for them. There are many Americans unaccounted for within our own borders.

:kick:

[saigon68]

5. A lot of these bodies were EATEN by Dogs

[TallahasseeGrannie]

8. I would think that is true

along with rats and cats. But not gators. They take down live prey.

[AnneD]

10. they may take em down alive..

but they let them soften in the water, so some of those washed out and sufficently ripened could be eaten by now. It's an easy meal for them. In fact, one of my friends is a journalist and said they saw plenty of that and film etc was confiscated.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. Well, you are right about that

they do hide their prey. Well that might explain where quite a few of them are then.

[CottonBear]

19. I saw pictures from European newspapers that had gators inside buildings

and the papers had reports of gators eating bodies, although I'm not sure if they knew if they were human or other animals. However, any carnivore would probably eat a newly dead body. :( With the humid weather and the huge numbers of dogs, gators, bobcats, posums, cats, escaped mountain lions from zoos (my sis-in-law in the hurricane area had a next door neighbor who saw a mountain lion on their back porch one morning post-hurricane) many animals have most likely consumed the dead. :(

[AnneD]

26. That's why after a point..

the catagory, missing and presumed dead should be added. Guess there will be a new GOP base...gator GOP's for Bush ;(

[kath]

29. Film was confiscated?! WTF? By whom?

Another example of fascism on the march?

[AnneD]

30. Per my journalist friend...

some camera folk did have film and atuff confiscated by NG types. Best look for Katrina stories and photos overseas to get more info...

[MnFats]

14. i understood that a gator, if hungry enough, will eat carion. but

i could be wrong.

just an aside to what is an appalling story of criminal negligence on the part of the BFEE.

[chaz4jazz]

22. Oh please, the noble alligator, only eats fresh meat

An alligator, like its cousin crocs, will eat any meat offered up by storm or carelessness - when hungry. They are and always have been scavangers as well as hunters. With brains the size of an egg, they feel lucky to find a nice fat corpse drifting past their den.

[TacticalPeek]

6. Great blog on New Orleans after Katrina.

Monday, March 06, 2006
To Understand the Issues Facing NOLA.....
Watch this video. I interviewed Geoff Coates a founder of the Urban Conservancy in New Orleans. This is really a must see video to understand the issues here in NOLA. Geoff gives an incredibly articulate perspective on the media narrative of Katrina, the issues facing NOLA as it recovers and rebuilds and the country's stake in that process.

http://scoutneworleans.blogspot.com


Check it out. :patriot:

[bvar22]

12. New Orleans blood on REPUBLICAN hands.

Especially pertinent after last weeks video revelations of the tele conference with bush* on the 28th of August.
Bush* was warned repeatedly, and promised assisstance to New Orleans BEFORE< DURING< and AFTER the storm!

[RazzleDazzle]

15. Absolutely Barbaric. But that's not the entirety of it.

Does everyone realize that the countries affected by the tsuanami probably took care of their sitaution AND their dead better? Of course, they did have help -- they had better help from the USA than the USA in NOLA had.

In fact, the damn mudslide in the Phillipines the other day had quicker and better help than NOLA had after Katrina.

There are no words to express the barbaric, horrific treatment of our dead -- AND OUR LIVING -- in NOLA at the hands of this administration. It is beyond barbaric, and approaches something not seen among humans, something ghastly, ghoulish and simply un-human. Not "inhumane" (tho it is that), but UN-human.

[Disturbed]

16. Six freakin' months later!

In attics that could have been searched many months ago. This is not excusable.

The Bush Regime is a criminal one and a failure to the American people. In the meantime Congress also fails in it's duty.

[aquart]

18. Yeah. Were the dogs otherwise occupied? Too busy for NOLA?

[Auntie Bush]

17. You hit th nail on the head!

[saigon68]

24. Reminds me of Iraq

A stray dog feeds on an Iraqi corpse. Marines are now hunting down stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and which could harbor rabies Photo AFP/Cris Bouroncle.

[wanpete]

20. This is so very shameful...

six months later and we did not respect our fellow citizens enough to search for them and give them a decent burial before now.

[file83]

21. I wonder where "cadaver-searching dogs" will find our bodies...

...once Plan X is put into action.

[TexasLawyer]

23. We couldn't afford to search?

As per the article:

Since December, bureaucratic red tape has blocked funding to find more bodies of missing residents hidden in the storm's wreckage. Money was made available last week, prompting renewed search and recovery efforts.

"We used state funds as long as we could until we ran out of money," Cataldie said. "Then (we] made the federal request, and that money just came in so we are doing what we can.

I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. Why isn't the finding and disposing of the dead a top priority. Would it cost THAT much to search the houses???!!?? Plus, there are plenty of people who would volunteer to search.

[IronLionZion]

27. You have to go house to house

it takes a lot of time. But there's no excuse for it taking this long. It's been 6 months already.

[dusty64]

25. The fact that

they are just NOW looking for the dead says it all.....

[bettyellen]

31. ....