i said i'd link the update when it was posted, grab it now if you want it, for whatever reason i find nola.com doesn't leave these updates up too long
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1133507272162130.xmlOf the bodies released to families, 49 percent are African-American and 47 percent are white, according to the health department. The numbers of male and female corpses are about equal.
New Orleans had the greatest loss; 344 of the bodies reunited with their families were from Orleans Parish, followed by St. Bernard, a distant second with 86 bodies.
considering new orleans is close to 70 percent black, this disaster didn't seem to discriminate by race, both black and white were affected, the meme that this is a disaster that selectively killed poor blacks is incorrect, where the disaster did discriminate is that it seemed to take the highest toll among our elderly, however, the age breakdown was not provided in this news release, it has been provided in some others & doubtless will be provided again in the future, i'll watch for it
keep in mind those who were evacuated out of state and died later of their injuries or exposure would not be included in this count, hence, the 70-plus evacuees from orleans who died in houston, texas are not included in the louisiana death toll
nor is the death toll included from mississippi
this is louisiana death toll
only of victims who died of their injuries or exposure in louisiana
around 50 evacuees later died of their injuries in baton rouge, i am not clear if they are included in the count
i do know the three people i knew personally who were killed are not yet added to the toll, all three have been laid to rest for some time now so i doubt they are going to be added, one died in evacuation and i believe no deaths in evacuation process are being counted as katrina deaths, fair enough, but the other two drowned so they really should have been counted and not put down as dead of old age!
so, yeah, the toll is an undercount because all deaths are simply not being attributed to the storm but to other causes but it's the best statistics we have right now
not that anyone needs my editorial comment but i hate to see race pitted against race in this disaster, truth is, there was terrible harm to all & we need to be working together now, ok, sermon over