Reuters: Morgue in Punta Gorda Refusing to Give Out Number of Dead

[ItsMyParty]

I receive Reuters on my Dish TV. This a.m. they had a Florida story and one line that made me sit up straight because it has shades of something in the past written all over it.

The story was basically of the damage and clean up; Bush visiting; and saying that ONLY 16 were dead. They talked about how much of a miracle that was for such a storm (almost subliminal message that it was because of the great preparations of the great Bush Boys!). And then they simply stated that the morgue in Punta Gorda was refusing to release the number of dead they had there. Here's why that hit off a memory.

Right after Selection 2000 was announced I first discovered Democratic-type websites like BuzzFlash, BartCop, etc. On one of those the dems were, of course, going nutso about the selection and there were reports coming from Florida democrats about how filthy and deceitful the Bushes were as they cited information from Hurrican Andrew and that Papa Bush's admnistration lied about the numbers of dead down there.

Remember this was real bad for Papa as he faced re-election and he had totally fucked up FEMA, etc. Anyway, they told of surveys afterward where people went door to door and asked if people had anyone killed in the hurricane or knew of any neighbor killed, etc. They wrote down the name of the dead person so that they wouldn't be counting the same "body" over and over. When the totals were compared with what was offically reported for an area, there was a big discepancy. People talked about how migrant camps and transient camps on edges of communities were blown away, bodies found in swamps, etc. and never counted.

When I heard this about Punta Gorda (which was one of the biggest hit) I cannot come up with any other explanation of why they won't admit how many are dead or at least an approximation!!! But, then again, this is a real important story to control at all costs because it could derail both Bushes. They want the 'spin' to be that they were soooo on the ball that only a very small number of people died. Some investigative reporter needs to get his ass down there and find out how many really died just in that area alone. I think things are being hid from the public.

[DrWeird]

1. Is that legal?

I doubt it.

[dweller]

2. an aussie story crossed here yesterday

i think it was yesterday, that 100's were reported missing.
Now the news mentions missing in the 100's, but not that they are not releasing #'s at the morgue.

it'll come out eventually, page 17C...maybe next friday.

dp

[ItsMyParty]

4. one of the Florida DU'ers yesterday brought up this in a post

..they pointed out that this make shift, government, morgue was not talking and giving out numbers. So when I saw that this morning, I knew the poster was right on about what was going on there.

[Old and In the Way]

3. How do they plan to keep it a secret?

I kind of doubt there's anything nefarious in this. Maybe there is a news blackout until the bodies are ID'd and next-of-kin notified? The numbers will obviously get out...this isn't Chile in 1975...yet.

[ItsMyParty]

7. The body count has nothing to do with notifying the next of kin

Whether one says they have 1 body there or 100 it does not intefere with finding next of kin or violating any confidentiality. There is no reason not to announce it just like officials in Florida are saying 16, 17 dead, etc. I'd like to hear from the Florida DU'er yesterday or alerted us that something was going on at that morgue and that they refused to give out any confirmation of how many dead.

[Junkdrawer]

8. How about "keep the numbers down until the story fades from...

the headlines".

You may want to check dmr's post #71 in this GD thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2221052&mesg_id=2223271&page=

It's a first person story from Andrew and a similar "hide the numbers" story.

[Old and In the Way]

26. But can they really expect that?

I suspect that real numbers will get reported and added up. Those are facts that are pretty hard to hide, I'd think. Maybe they can stage manage the reporting initially, but given the internet and it's information gathering/disseminating capabilities, someone is going to get very close to the real number. And the higher the delta, the bigger the risk for Bush.

Being secretive could backfire big time on them....if they delay the truth, it will come out closer to the election and, if people sense that they are playing politics in withholding the real number, I think it will create a backlash with negative consequences on Bush's re-election chances, particularly in Florida.

[Junkdrawer]

29. Well, stranger things have happened. Maybe Jeb panicked..

See my scenario in post #18. One thing is sure: the press is starting to fill with "the morgue won't give us numbers" stories. And we had early reports of "bodies stacked in trailer parks", yet officials are saying only 4 dead in Charlotte County. And two refrigerated tractor trailers for four bodies?

Perhaps this is their Watergate where a small political black eye turns into a major scandal because they thought they owned the press.

[Junkdrawer]

30. PS: And remember Brother George was on the way down...

Maybe the numbers were going to be held down until a few days after Sunday's photo op.

[Eloriel]

14. Your cheerful and overly optimistic

"nothing to see here, move along" attitude on this issue is beginning to grate just a little. I don't know whether you're in denial, or what. When the number of deaths from ANY reason is withheld, it is by definition "nefarious" in a supposedly open society.

[Old and In the Way]

25. Whoa.

""nothing to see here, move along" attitude on this issue is beginning to grate just a little."

This is my 1st post on the subject. Can you at least let me make 3 or 4 similar posts before you start complaining?

I guess time will tell if there's a conspiracy to hide the numbers.

[cthrumatrix]

5. they wouldn't do anything that stupid....I hope. On the other hand it

would sink both bush's.

[Bunny]

6. Read this. It adds credence to the story.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2221052#2223271

[Junkdrawer]

9. "Officials reluctant to release death toll (Hurricane Charley)"

CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Two refrigerated trucks sat in the wind-torn parking lot of the Best Western Water Front Inn off the tranquil waters of Charlotte Harbor, serving as a temporary morgue for the casualties of Hurricane Charley.

Four people may have been killed by the storm in Charlotte County, some reports indicate, and Charley led to at least 16 deaths statewide during its forceful push Friday through Florida.

With ongoing search and rescue efforts stretching into the evening hours Sunday, Charlotte County emergency officials declined to confirm the county's fatalities.

"We've never dealt with a mass casualty event, and we're not yet prepared to (verify) or acknowledge the number of fatalities," said Wayne Sallade, director of Charlotte County's emergency management. "Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number.

...


http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9411262.htm

[Shopaholic]

10. Uhm---Can't this guy count?

Because it seems to me it would be a pretty simple matter of going into the refrigerated trucks and counting the number of corpses. . . .

[Junkdrawer]

11. LOL - Great minds...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x755739

[KittyWampus]

12. Unless The Bodies Are Stacked So High...

[Retrograde]

31. or there're just a lot of parts

sorry to be gross.

[madfloridian]

21. In just that one area there were over 30 trailer parks, not just trailers.

The pics we see are of almost total devastation. That is quite a few people in an area that was supposedly not evacuated.

[Imalittleteapot]

13. For what political purpose

would they withhold the numbers? I don't get it.

[Bunny]

15. Because it would make Jebthro and Shrubby look incompetent?

Jebby for not evacuating enough areas, and Shrub for having so many of Florida's NG troops in Iraq? Not enough resources and/or protection for the survivors? Why would they want it to be known that maybe hundreds have died? It would make them look terrible, whether they deserve it or not. Of course there could be political reasons for hiding the death toll.

[Junkdrawer]

18. OK: you're Jeb and the experts advise you evacuate a WIDE area...

but you remember the lumps officials took a year or two back with "excessive" evacuations. So you evacuate only the expected landfall.

Then the storm blows up from Cat 2 to Cat 4, and it hooks in. The experts were right and the bodies are everywhere. What do you do?

Now, you and your brother have amazing press control. Would you maybe be a little tempted to hold the numbers down until the story fades a bit from the headlines?

[teryang]

16. The "black crow" stations ran a public service

...forum during the first thirty hours of so of power outage in central and northeast florida. It really was a valuable service because various sources called in with tips and advice for safety, then after the storm was gone with info on road conditions, traffic laws for intersections without signals, places to get bottled water and ice, etc. It was valuable because there was a total public communications breakdown for those without power. Listening to the radio was incredibly frustrating. I would describe the response on the AM/FM radio spectrum as pathetic.

After the initial staff went home because they had been up for over a day, one DJ was left holding the mike. His standard answer was 3-5 days for restoration of power and frankly he didn't get answers for people whose county governments seemed less prepared than say Orange county (Orlando). Communications was really a problem for other counties including my own, Volusia, which otherwise gave the appearance of being well prepared before the storm hit. (As far as I know only two people were killed in Volusia as a result of the storm.) Cell phones were blocked except for 911 calls, land lines and electrical power were out everywhere. The number of large trees uprooted and lines down has to be seen to be believed. Polk county seemed to have the most complaints broadcast. Please note, I'm listening from north of Orlando and didn't get any broadcasts from south/southwest Florida.

The stations stopped running the call ins when they started getting calls that homes were completely destroyed for over twenty hours and NO ONE had come to check to see if there were any survivors. Then there was generalized bitching and complaining from elderly people living alone, isolated with no power, no ice, etc., and no help forthcoming. Some of the responses were along the order of "stop your bitchin, an armada of electrical trucks is on the way. (from out of state)"

I can't complain because my family came through uncomfortable but unscathed. Our power came back w/in 48 hours and I understand we're among the minority on that score because our places of employment are still without power. One reason is that we are near major arteries that got power back first for traffic safety reasons. A lot of intersections are still without traffic signals. Very hazardous but people seem to be catching on to the four way stop rule.

My main concern now is raw sewage and garbage collecting in our street which is a serious health hazard that is underestimated. Water pumping stations and treatment plants are still on back up power. The area was saturated one week before Charley which fortunately didn't dump a lot of rain here because it passed quickly. My area's water, sewage and drainage is severely taxed right now and is marginally holding up according to the news. I hope there are no disease outbreaks from contaminated water and no more rain please, we are about to float away.

I don't think however that the plight of the elderly is adequately appreciated in the current situation with massive numbers (hundreds of thousands) of people without power. On the other hand, a lot of consideration was shown to representatives of the profoundly disabled who called in with desperate requests for help. The post mortem on this whole experience is yet to be written. My best wishes to those who are still suffering.

[Old and In the Way]

27. Thanks for posting.......I've never experienced anything like

the natural disaster that Charley has wrought on Florida. Hope you make it through this OK.

[teryang]

33. Thank you OAITW, it's good to be back at DU

The last three days seemed a lot longer. Good to see everyone kickin as usual.

[ItsMyParty]

17. Read this from dmr----it's exactly some of the info I was referring

to in my original post about what people in Florida were saying several years ago regarding Andrew. I'm pasting this from another thread here on GD and hope dmr doesn't mind:

I was down in deep south Dade County.

Two days after Hurricane Andrew struck, I went down on official business, escorted by Metro-Dade police (now called Miami-Dade police) because ... I was going to post why I was there, but that would reveal too much. If it matters, I'll tell you in a PM.

Lined up on the ground covered, were scores of dead bodies. At one point I tried to count them, but couldn't. The police officer and I on the way back to my job discussed the 100s of deaths. We were both shook up about what we had just witnessed and what he told me he had seen previously. The bodies were at that time being retrieved by the local police and the National Guard unit. Just so many goddamn bodies!

At first, on the local news, they reported a high count of deaths. But almost immediately after, that number changed, and it remained somewhere in the 40s. If I remember correctly, the official statistic is 15 died as a direct result of the hurricane, and 29 indirectly. What a fucking lie.

The following Saturday, I went down again, this time as a volunteer. By this time, George Bush (41) finally sent in the US Army to organize the efforts. I asked someone about the many deaths. I was met, face to face by someone in the Army. I forget what he said to me. I was stunned and I was frightened. But whatever it was he said, under no certain terms were there anymore dead than the officially reported dead.

You asked, eye22004: So those people had no relatives or friends, and they just "disappeared?" And noone has come forward, and no media has caught on or anything?



I can tell you. They came in mostly from the migrant camps. They lived in ramshackle little houses or apartments. The nobodies of our society. The illegals. Whether they were migrant, illegal or whatever, if nobody claimed them, they were NOT reported as dead. One thing about Florida than anywhere else is Florida is very transient. People come and go in and out of the state all the time.

That, my friend, is why the count was so low. You don't have to believe me. But it is the truth. I saw with my own eyes, and I wish I hadn't. My co-workers who were down there working saw it too. We had the fear of God put in us not to spread 'rumors' as they called it. It's been 14 years now and I'm still antsy to talk about it. It is also very difficult to talk about because it conjures up so many horrible emotions from that time. I am sitting here shaking as I type just remembering that terrible, terrible time.

[BeFree]

22. Sounds about right

Never could believe there were that few deaths from Andrew.
Homestead was full of Mexican workers just before the storm. With no way out, all they could do would have been to hole up in one of the buildings around town. A town that was damn near leveled.

I suspect the bodies counted from Charley will be harder to hide as most people there are more settled. And I suspect that at least 50 were killed. Don't put it past the monarchs to not tell us the whole truth.


Added on edit.. This quote from the Bradenton Herald web article:

"We've never dealt with a mass casualty event, and we're not yet prepared to (verify) or acknowledge the number of fatalities," said Wayne Sallade, director of Charlotte County's emergency management. "Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number.

"If the toll is what I believe I'm hearing in a storm of the magnitude we went through in this county, it's a miracle," Sallade said. "It's a miracle."

*******

"If the toll is what I believe I'm hearing...."
Who is that whispering in his ear?

[Wickerman]

19. The comparison to Hurricane Andrew is Apt

Interesting. Type in Hurricane Andrew Death Toll estimate in to Google and you get numbers ranging from the mid-teens to a high of 60 something.

Type in Hurricane Andrew Death Toll Cover-up and you get some pretty fantastic stuff, yet all similar. Survivors being roped off from civilization by military and not provided basic services, stories of dozens and dozens of bodies being pulled from area water and tales of whole camps of illegal immigrants being wiped out.

Which is right? I have no idea. But, since I went through all the trouble of tracking this stuff down I will share it. Note that at least one of the folks was rescued by UFO's.

www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/hurricane.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01530/hurcase.html

www.whereheavensmeet.com/andrew/ch25txt.html
more of above http://www.hufon.org/September_2002.htm

[madfloridian]

20. I saw a local anchor talking from there.

She had visited one of or the mortuary, not sure of her words. They were also without power, and had no idea of the number of deaths...she looked very funny when she said that. There have been a lot of funny looks from local anchors in various areas.

She said they could not tell her anything, they did not know.

[in_cog_ni_to]

23. OK...Investigative reporters need to

get their asses into the Morgues and start counting. They CANNOT get away with this. Greg Palast? Where are you?

[madfloridian]

24. They are saying just 16 statewide. There are 5 just from Polk.

So that means only 11 throughout the rest of the state. That makes me skeptical. Besides the news anchors all have a dazed kind of look. Maybe just the heat and being covered with sweat, but odd.

[tom_paine]

28. Dazed as in "That guy just told me to behave like a Soviet..."

"...and I'm doing it."

THAT kind of dazed?

[dweller]

32. and the postscript thought

"and now i am an accomplice" revelation.

dp

[Hubert Flottz]

34. Global warming is REAL!

This will only get worse!

[Katarina]

35. Reuters on Dish?

Could you tell me what channel on DishNetowrk please?

[rman]

36. why would Reuters release this on Dish TV but not in a press release?

-

[Junkdrawer]

37. Local news has a similar story.

Officials reluctant to release death toll

CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Two refrigerated trucks sat in the wind-torn parking lot of the Best Western Water Front Inn off the tranquil waters of Charlotte Harbor, serving as a temporary morgue for the casualties of Hurricane Charley.

Four people may have been killed by the storm in Charlotte County, some reports indicate, and Charley led to at least 16 deaths statewide during its forceful push Friday through Florida.

With ongoing search and rescue efforts stretching into the evening hours Sunday, Charlotte County emergency officials declined to confirm the county's fatalities.

"We've never dealt with a mass casualty event, and we're not yet prepared to (verify) or acknowledge the number of fatalities," said Wayne Sallade, director of Charlotte County's emergency management. "Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9411262.htm