Katrina victims: "next of kin unknown" bodies being "disposed of"

[rainbow4321]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8F8JDHOE.html

They waited for nearly four months, not knowing the horrific truth: that their son and daughter-in-law died as the storm surge swallowed their Beach Boulevard apartment. That their bodies had long since been found and identified at the Harrison County, Miss., coroner's office. And that they were about to be "disposed of" after going so long unclaimed.

The agencies the Allens had been calling all those months hadn't contacted the coroner, and the coroner hadn't checked with the agencies.

"Nobody talked to nobody," Eldo Allen said, his voice wrapped in grief. "That's why we just was almost too late. If we'd been a little later they would have disposed of the bodies with 'next of kin unknown,' and that would have been ... "

"She told me immediately, 'He did not survive the storm and neither did his wife Susan and we've known for over two months but couldn't find any of his family members,'" Eldo Allen said. "So they didn't check. They didn't talk with FEMA, FEMA didn't talk with them and the Red Cross didn't talk to either."

[booksenkatz]

1. So very opposite from the treatment of the 9/11 bodies. Why? nt

[tsuki]

3. Bush could not been seen as killing more Americans than 911. n/t

[rainbow4321]

6. Searching shelters, sending mail yet officials just toss the bodies...

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8F8JF8G0.html

The Associated Press spoke with leaders of the organizations in charge of reuniting people as well as government officials and advocates to discuss how those efforts have gone — and why so many adults and children still are officially unaccounted for.


Q: What are searchers doing to find people?

A: Staffers and scores of volunteers work the phones, scour neighborhoods and share information with local police and federal agencies. They visit shelters and hotels. They appeal to the media to publicize photographs, and they keep in touch with ministers and school officials in case someone turns up. Sometimes their work is as simple (and as slow) as mailing a letter to the person's old address — and waiting weeks for it to be forwarded to a new residence by the U.S. Postal Service.

Q: Why are thousands still listed as missing?

A: The reunification process has been bumpy. Searchers were overwhelmed by the huge numbers of missing. The children's center, for instance, got more than 33,000 calls on hurricane-related cases between Sept. 1 and Jan. 4, four times the normal volume. Plus, there's been a lot of government red tape. For months, FEMA was reluctant to share with searchers current contact information for evacuated people, citing federal privacy provisions. Agencies have repeatedly appealed for this information. More recently, FEMA has provided limited information to the FBI, which is working with the searching groups. Leaders of the location efforts acknowledge the process hasn't been as swift as they would have liked but say they're doing all they can.

[Trevelyan]

9. FEMA cited "privacy concerns" to avoid giving information to the agencies

who were asked to help and who have an excellent reputation like The Center for Missing and Exploited Children. NERVE with the latest Bush attempts at fascism by asking for a million records from Google!!

It fits in with their way of mishandling - deliberately - the whole Katrina tragedy and Rigorous Intitution had an article recently on the missing children - I think it is related to MK-ULTRA with the FEMA Concentration Camps and have a site on these poor people that I pray for:

http://katrinafemacamps.blogspot.com/ also:
http://katrinamemo.blogspot.com/ has information on the Aftermath of another needless bush tragedy

Dec. 6: Katrina victim Diane Cole French gets into a debate with Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., during congressional hearings held Tuesday in Washington

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10354221/ (Shays is unbelievably nasty in calling these Katrina evacuees liars - should watch)

=New Orleans' resident Leah Hodges cries while telling Congress that Katrina victims "died from abject neglect" on Tuesday

=Louisiana gets its first FEMA bills, totaling $156 million =Pay FEMA for what? FEMA didn't do anything. So much for states rights.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x45541

To Complain to FEMA: http://www.fema.gov/feedback/[e-mail]

Abandoning the Katrina Victims Who Survived FEMA's Deliberate Incompetence is another OUTRAGE against all American citizens. FEMA needs to take responsibility to save lives of US citizens, this is what we pay taxes for not Brownie's luxury dinners and disaster profiteers.

10/12/05 ~~~~WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE TRUCK-LOADS OF ICE FOR THE GULF COAST? LAST I HEARD THEY WERE IN MAINE.COST $153,000 AND COUNTING.??

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

"Refugees from New Orleans behind barbed wire in Utah"
http://twolostmoons.com/barbed_wire.htm http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg3/

[Swamp Rat]

15. "federal privacy provisions?!?!?" WTF?!

How is it that an agency has the right to privacy but citizens do not? ... esp. when it concerns the death of a loved one?

We are through the looking glass. :eyes:

[OneBlueSky]

18. affluent white vs. poor black . . . any questions? . . . n/t

.

[booksenkatz]

22. It was a rhetorical question

but I had to ask it anyway. I can't begin to describe how the difference, and the knowledge of the meaning of the difference, sickens me.

L

[napi21]

2. So who did the coroner's office check with?

I know I heard they were checking to ID the bodies, and I also know that's SOP with a coroner's office. If they didn't check with FEMA, ot the Red Cross, who the hell DID they check with?

[Horse with no Name]

4. One of the reasons they are doing this

as I stated months ago is because if they dispose of the bodies, then the next of kin have to wait the mandatory 7 years to cash in on the life insurance because their loved ones will be considered missing.
These are all accidental deaths which will be have to be paid double idemnity because the majority of the people that died, died AFTER the hurricane hit by drowning, etc.
The life insurance companies invest their premiums in a failing stock market. If all that money comes out of the stock market at once, it will be a major hit to the economy.
The companies that insure homes are taking a hit over Katrina. That is why it is so difficult to get them to pay. That is why the government won't step in and make them pay.

[lavenderdiva]

8. I think your reasoning is very interesting, and I certainly had not

considered this. While I think you may be right in some cases, I do believe that a large number of the dead from Katrina, probably could not afford life insurance. I am from New Orleans, and many, many of those in the 9th ward, and those hit the hardest were just trying to make ends meet, however they could. I am not so sure they would have been able to afford life insurance. A lot of N.O. did not have health insurance and used Charity Hospital as their primary source of healthcare. Of course, I could be wrong...

on edit: don't get me wrong, I agree with you that insurers would do any slimy thing they could to NOT pay off, if they had to!

[Joanne98]

17. I hadn't thought of that. Good catch!

[JeffR]

5. As someone mentioned here the other day

Soylent Green is people.

[Starlight]

12. Don't give haliburton any ideas.

:scared:

[Ian David]

7. FEMA, La. outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping

FEMA, La. outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.

Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco subsequently inked a contract with the firm after talks between FEMA and the firm broke down. Kenyon's original deal was secured by the Department of Homeland Security.


In other words, FEMA and then Blanco outsourced the body count from Hurricane Katrina -- which many believe the worst natural disaster in U.S. history -- to a firm whose parent company is known for its "experience" at hiding and dumping bodies.

More:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.html

See also:
Funeralgate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jump to: navigation, search

Scandal involving George W Bush and family campaign contributor Robert Waltrip, owner of Service Corporation International, the largest funeral home company in the world.

In 1999, Bush was subpoenaed but refused to testify in a lawsuit filed against the state of Texas and SCI by Eliza May, former director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, who claimed that she was fired when she refused to quit investigating SCI despite pressure from Bush and his then Chief of Staff Joe Allbaugh.

The lawsuit was quietly settled in November, 2001, weeks before the revelation in the media that two Florida cemeteries owned by SCI were recycling graves, removing remains from their places of rest and placing other people in the graves.

9,000 people have staked a claim to a $100,000,000 settlement in a lawsuit stemming from the the desecration of graves at these cemeteries.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeralgate

[rocktivity]

10. The Bush Empire knows full well the implications of Katrina's body count

eclipsing 9/11's. We will never have an official number.

:(
rocknation

[HeeBGBz]

11. That's appalling

What a major fuck up. What is the matter with these people? Why didn't the coroner think to ask Red Cross or FEMA or even look on the list of missing persons?

This makes me want to puke. If I had a missing family member, I'd be going ballistic about now.

[elehhhhna]

13. We're paying for DNA ID testing...wtf?

Identification by DNA
Dept. of Health contracts ReliaGene to identify Katrina victims
By Bhavna Kaul


Dr. Sudhir Sinha, founder and laboratory director, ReliaGene Technologies (Photo: Courtesy, ReliaGene)
The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) has given ReliaGene Technologies, a New Orleans-based human identification testing and research laboratory, a contract to work with officials from the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory in the collection of familial DNA reference samples for the identification of Hurricane Katrina victims.
http://www.newsindia-times.com/2006/01/06/business16-102826.html

[elehhhhna]

14. ANd Kenyon got a nobidcontract for Mortuary services. wtf?

Contract 1: $300,000 through FEMA
Contract 2: Value unknown through Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals

Types of Contracts:
Contract 1: Fixed Price, Other than Full/Open Competition.
Contract 2: Unknown

Contract Details:
Contract 1: Awarded by FEMA on Sept. 5th, for Lease of Portable Morgues, fixed price contract worth $300,000.
Source: FEMA Contract List, Oct. 21, 2005.

Contract 2: “Kenyon has been awarded a contract by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH), to recover the bodies of deceased victims of Hurricane Katrina…The contract was effective September 13 and gives Kenyon International Emergency Services full responsibility for the state’s body recovery effort, working in conjunction with DHH. More than 120 Kenyon team members are presently deployed at several sites in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to help in the critical task of recovery.”
http://www.taxpayer.net/budget/katrinaspending/contracts/kenyon.htm

[glitch]

16. The stench of corruption follows everything and everyone associated with *

* BUSH.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Oh gosh

:cry: That's so sad. Maybe that's why still so many people are "missing"? Because they weren't counted?

[fortyfeetunder]

20. Disgusting. Totally disgusting

:cry:
Keep this one kicked, because I think there are thousands more like this.

:cry:

[linazelle]

21. Sounds like the same thing that happened with "intelligence" failure

and 9/11.

Gee. I guess nobody's to blame then. Maybe we'll throw a coupla' ten thousands--heck a million at it to "investigate--start of a commission or somethin'...and then they'll write a book.

Yawn. Move along. Nothing to see here either.