Deaths of evacuees push toll to 1,577 (Louisiana Katrina deaths)

[uppityperson]

Edited to reinsert article which disappeared the first posting. odd

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1148020620117480.xml&coll=1

The first stories of death came quickly and immediately: New Orleans area residents drowning in fetid floodwaters, succumbing in sweltering attics or being swept out to sea.

But state officials say that for weeks after it made landfall Aug. 29, Hurricane Katrina kept claiming Louisiana victims, often in more subtle fashion and often in other states: elderly and ill evacuees too fragile for grueling trips on gridlocked highways, infants stillborn to mothers who were shuttled to other cities when they should have been on bed rest and residents overcome with anxiety by 24-hour television broadcasts of the devastation back home.

Because of a continuing rise in reports of out-of-state deaths, Louisiana's official Katrina toll jumped 22 percent on Thursday, 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. The work will be tedious, but the ultimate goal is to define the mortal scope of Katrina's tragedy.... (more @ link including "Almost half of the out-of-state deaths occurred in Texas.")

[jseankil]

1. The Death toll of Katrina has been overlooked

The inaction and failure by government will happen again if we simply forget.

[babylonsister]

4. I'm afraid it's going to happen again despite our remembering.

:( I have no faith whatsoever that this admin has done anything positive to allay another Katrina.

[pitohui]

9. hell they're going backward

in the new hurricane plan proposed by mayor nagin, there is NO, as in the number ZERO, shelter of last resort in new orleans

no more trapped and frightened poor people crapping on the floor of our nice superdome i guess, they can ALL just stay home and drown if they don't own cars

:sarcasm:

honestly i don't understand the man or his good friend mr. bush, he wants the poor black voter, but he doesn't want them to actually be able to live in the city or anything, let them stay in houston and vote from there i guess is his strategy but if they come back here they had better be prepared for NO health care, NO public shelters, etc.

it's crazy world if you ask me

of course when mayor of baton rouge heard that superdome will no longer be used as a shelter, well, guess what, he said the auditorium in baton rouge would no longer be used as a public shelter either, he was pretty exercised that nagin dreamed up his plan w.out one tiny phone call to his office to give him a heads-up

apparently the plan is to put people on boxcars and ship them to houston, christ, i just don't see it

[babylonsister]

10. And wherever the next one might hit, that scenario will be played out

over and over. They're more concerned with changing FEMA's name that fixing what's obviously broke.

[DrDebug]

2. RIP

How many are still missing?

Was it just me or was the tragedy New Orleans even harder to watch then 9/11? Somehow that was different because it was so surreal, however the New Orleans story was hours upon hours of refreshing the various messageboards and nothing happened. Nothing was happened. Not one day, but days of nothing happening.

And how soon to we forget.




George W. Bush doesn't care about black people
George W. Bush doesn't care about people either

[DrDebug]

3. More Than 3,200 Still Missing From Katrina

To answer my own question

NEW ORLEANS - More than 3,200 people are officially still unaccounted for nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the state medical examiner wants the search to resume for those missing from the most devastated neighborhoods.

A total of nearly 11,500 people were reported missing to the Find Family National Call Center, a center run by federal and state workers. The reports included people from throughout the Gulf Coast area, but most were from Louisiana.

As of Wednesday, all but about 3,200 had been located, the agency said.

Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state's medical examiner, said he planned to ask state and parish officials to recheck about 400 addresses where authorities have consistent information about people missing from badly flooded neighborhoods. Most are in east New Orleans; about 50 are from St. Bernard Parish.

(...)

More than 1,300 Katrina-related deaths have been reported across five states, with 1,080 of those from Louisiana. Seventy of those killed in Louisiana remain unidentified, Cataldie said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060119/ap_on_re_us/katrina_missing_4

[90-percent]

5. EXCELLENT!

Hopefully if the death count exceeds 9/11 the US can declare WAR ON HURRICANES and we can invade countries that we suspect may be harboring hurricanes some time in the future.

We can't let a tiny country grow into a hurricane harboring ship of death that would threaten the USA.

don't worry, the war will pay for itself and the weather systems will greet us in the streets as liberators of their bad weather systems.

-85% Jimmy

[DrDebug]

6. Hurricanes start near the coast of Africa right?

And hurricanes were only part of the problem. Human error was responsible for at least one breach.

Story in short:

Katrina destroyed the restaurants near the marina on Lake Ponchetrain
Restaurant wood and debris wash up against bridge
4 hours after Katrina, Drain pumps come on and start delivering water into canal
Bridge turns into dam
Orders to shut off pump were never received
Water backs up, tops, and destroys the floodwall

The original story is no longer online, but we still have the pictures:

The bridge before Katrina:


Note the restaurants (boats)

And the after pictures:

[bvar22]

7. That has been totally debunked!

Had debris plugged the canal at that bridge, it would have prevented water from Lake Pontchatrain from flooding New Orleans.

Assuming that you are correct, and the canal was plugged at that point, only the contents (volume) of that one canal would have emptied into the streets of New Orleans, causing damage to only a handful of houses immediately adjacent to the break. There is NO WAY that the single pumping station on the 17th St. Canal pumped the volume of water that flooded New Orleans.

You remember that water ran through the gap in the 17th Street Floodwall (I refuse to call it a levee) for days after Katrina until they were able to plug it with sandbags. That water came from Lake Pontchatrain, not the pumping station on the 17th Street canal (about 1 mile further inland.)
Believe me. I KNOW!

Edited to add: What you see in the sat photos are merely a thin layer of floating debris pushed into the bridge pilings by the strong North wind. A common occurrence.

[pitohui]

8. bvar22 is correct, read that post

also the pump operators of new orleans including at the 17 st. floodwall are only a little bitter w. being conflated w. the pump operators of jefferson who abandoned the parish as katrina approached, the orleans folks did not abandon their task

the pump operators of new orleans stayed on the job and did all they could in terrible circumstance w. little provision for their safety, they were truly on the front line

some of the operators at london avenue floodwall have pointed out that they were unable to leave for days and finally left by stealing washed-up boats at the uno campus because no provision was made for their rescue

there was human error all right but not by the pump operators

the error was in the bad design of the 17th st. and london avenue floodwalls to begin with

look at the traditional style levees that protected uptown along the mississippi river, they held

whoever dreamed that gentilly could be destroyed, gentilly being on the gentilly ridge mind you, and even old metairie flooded on metairie ridge, and yet uptown would not be destroyed in such a storm

the errors were the army corp of engineers design at 17th st. canal and london ave. canal in my humble opinion and the opinion of many

[Sequoia]

11. Half the deaths occured in Texas?!

But didn't Babs say things were going well for them? Guess she can't dirty her beautiful mind with the truth.

[uppityperson]

13. Things are going well, they don't have to worry 'bout hunger, homelessness

My respect for Babs is only surpassed by my respect for her son.

[Sequoia]

14. Indeed. Check this out from another post on DU

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/051706.html

[uppityperson]

15. He is a nasty little bully,learned well from his parents.

[Initech]

12. 1600 dead from Katrina, 2400 dead troops, 3,000 dead in WTC attacks...

Not to mention the millions of Iraqis dead or injured. And then President Dumbass goes on TV and makes these speeches about how we should "err on the side of life". Hypocrisy at its finest, folks!