This is why people get worried: Galveston briefing says NADA about search for bodies.

[EFerrari]

This morning there was a briefing by the Galveston officials. The county judge said they were going to be searching debris piles today. The subtext was that they were going to be looking for bodies.

Okay. So, at their 4pm briefing with FEMA, they didn't say a word about that search. It was like they never announced it. They talked about the Small Business Administration offering loans and about how the Navy had come in to help out. But, nothing, nada about the search they had announced earlier today.

You'd think that if things went well, they'd want to tell people about that. Or, if things didn't go very well, they'd find a way to say that, too.

But THIS is exactly why people are worried and trying to come up with answers on their own. There is an information vacuum. I don't know who is responsible for that, but it is there.

[malaise]

1. Are you watching the equipment coming in

I think the marines have arrived to pick up bodies. Some of the equipment on the back of those big trucks sure looked like portable morgues.

[EFerrari]

2. I'm streaming Ch 11. What are you seeing?

Oh, geeze. :(

:hug:
:grouphug:

[haele]

4. Could be generators and comm center trailers, also -

The Sea-Bees and/or Marines could be staging an "infrastructure repair" landing to clean up debris, make roadways passable, and set up basic sewage support and equipment to create potable water for the island until the civil authorities can get the repairs started. Medical and morgue support is part of the disaster assistance package, true, but it isn't the primary reason they roll the big equipment in.

They've done this in other locations, usually as part of international good-will assistance exercises when, say, a tsunami or typhoon disaster hits a third world country.

Haele

[EFerrari]

6. You'd think someone would be smart enough to give people

the information they need if only to quell speculation. :shrug:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

8. And you know this from your own extensive personal experience...

...in the field of disaster recovery, or are you just pulling shit out of your ass?

[EFerrari]

10. Thank you for adding your own consummate experience to this discussion.

I always appreciate the civility and expertise shared here.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. He said it best in his other thread.

He saw trucks. TRUCKS! God help us all.

[EFerrari]

18. She. And at this point, I'm trusting her to be more careful than you seem to be.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. OK.

For the remainder of this subthread, I would like to see only evidence of mobile morgues being delivered to Galveston by hovercraft, as has been claimed. Credible evidence. I've got nothing more to say.

[EFerrari]

25. Maybe I missed the first thing you had to say or anything at all.

malaise was the very first DUer who got and talked about the repression going on in the disaster area. She has been right much more often than not and she's been right earlier than anyone else.

You have been abusive of many posters who are following this story.

You chose your own adventure.

[cobalt1999]

12. Hey, Malaise lives on a hurricane prone island.

He's given good advice and insight for those going through hurricanes. So, he does have extensive personal experience.

I don't believe there are massive amount of dead bodies, but any disaster recovery effort BETTER have some body refrigeration units whether they are needed or not.

[EFerrari]

13. And they better have a way to communicate with the populace. n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. And I live on a reality-prone island...

...where there's no conceivable motive for whatever nonsense gibberish is being suggested here.

[EFerrari]

19. Thanks. Whenever we need someone to justify government repression,

you'll get a PM.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. You know, I like you and I respect your opinions.

Even though I think you're wrong most of the time. But that's just me. I like and respect the fact that you will engage in reasonable discussion. But I just don't grok your position on this shit at all. What exactly is being covered up here? Where is the motive? What is the reason? I haven't seen a coherent explanation of this from anybody yet.

[tbyg52]

55. Motive? To keep bad news out of public view? Could be.... nt

[Usrename]

61. The Schwartzkopf doctrine: "We don't do body counts".

It's just another way for them to catapult the propaganda. Gen. Schwartzkopf started this protocol with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death">Highway of Death during the first Gulf War.

Since then, it has been used to cover up a whole series of horrors, including Katrina where over a thousand direct deaths have been http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-parker-aab/still-counting-katrinas-d_b_109056.html">documented. The inverse is also very effective. Remember that the first action taken after Baghdad fell was to disinter thousands of bodies of casualties from the eight-year Iran/Iraq war in order to show that Saddam was a mass-murderer.

The body counts are important. Maybe the most important thing that can be done at this point. Remember the great lengths that were gone to in order to create the data base for the dead from 9/11? There are many web sites dedicated to their memory, some with comprehensive obituaries.

There will never be such care taken to establish who perished in Katrina or Ike. It would only serve to magnify the horror and shame of the events. Hence the media lockdown, just like Katrina.

What would happen if it became known that more people perished in Texas than in New Orleans? They don't have a Mayor Nagin in Texas to take the blame.

[cobalt1999]

20. That I agree with.

[EFerrari]

22. So, you're basically on this thread to disrupt it and not to think through the problem?

Got it.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

31. Maybe you should go back and see what you just agreed with.

My OP was about the fact, not the intuition, not the warm feeling, but the FACT that Galveston conducted a search today and then, did not release any information.

Where you or that other poster can find gibberish in that is beyond me.

[cobalt1999]

32. I'm agreeing that rumors of large numbers of bodies is "gibberish"

I've always agreed with you that Galveston and the government needs to release information. Without information, the result is gibberish.

However, if you want to insult me instead of asking for clarification, then that says more about you than me.

[EFerrari]

33. I want to know what is going on in Texas. n/t

[tannybogus]

27. Oh Please! The UK has enough Princess Diana conspiracies to put Elvis to shame.nt

[WillyT]

28. Britain... Reality Prone, LOL !!!

It's because of reports like this: http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6804

That are starting to circulate now, combined both with the rumors AND facts of Katrina, folded in with a government capable of just about anything, that makes us a little suspicious over here on this side of the pond.

And we'd like the truth from someone other than the government if you don't mind.

Hell... otherwise, what the hell did we overthrow YOU guys for?

:evilgrin:

[LonelyLRLiberal]

48. Yes, there is a motive - Republican administration fails AGAIN when a major US city has a disaster.

And, BTW, you need to take a chill pill or learn some manners.

[malaise]

44. She thank you

:D

[alittlelark]

uh.... you sound pretty defensive...

WHAT are you defending? Are you defending the right to squelch public discourse?

What are you defending.... FEMA?

Honestly, WHAT are you defending?

[darkhorse1965]

23. Cross your fingers!

I mean, sheesh, I have read your posts and all I can say is that your name suits you. Where have all the flowers gone?

[roguevalley]

46. They aren't going to look are there. this is horrifying.

[lostnfound]

53. The marines?? What happened to our National Guard? nt

[EFerrari]

3. I have to take the puppy out. Anyone who can pay attention

is much appreciated.

Where is the update on the body search?

:shrug:

[cobalt1999]

5. The information vacuum is not an excuse to stop thinking though.

I agree with you about people worrying and trying to come up with answers. However, lack of information doesn't mean latching onto the wildest rumors coming down the pike.

Intelligent people should not turn off their brains just because they don't have all the information.

[EFerrari]

7. Who is proposing turning off brains?

[cobalt1999]

9. Proposing?

Of course no one is proposing any such thing. It's happened though. Sometimes, people need to step back and THINK vs. react.

[EFerrari]

11. You're arguing against something that isn't on this thread.

It would be very good if we could try to figure out what is going on in the disaster area.

Maybe my tinfoil hat is loose, but if you tell me you're going to search for bodies in the morning and then blow off the topic later in the day, I'm going to wonder wtf you're doing.

[cobalt1999]

14. No, I'm agreeing that the lack of information is the cause of rumors.

However, the lack of information, shouldn't be make people believe in the worst.

As for the "but if you tell me you're going to search for bodies in the morning and then blow off the topic later in the day, I'm going to wonder wtf you're doing." I have no idea what that means.

[EFerrari]

15. As per my OP, Galveston officials said they'd be searching debris piles

today for bodies. They didn't say "for bodies" but they did say that with their gestures. (I think the vid is up at the KHOU website. It was unmistakable, wrapping up a discussion about causalities.)

They blew off the whole issue in their afternoon briefing. So, they got people's hopes up in the morning and blew them off this afternoon. I think that's a mistake.

[cobalt1999]

24. They need to address the question of bodies and more deaths

I agree they are making people MORE concerned than if they were up front. Still, people need to realize that lack of information is NOT proof of the worst case scenario.

[cwydro]

30. Please tell me why there would be a cover-up?

I am asking as nicely as I can.

People were told by a government agency to evacuate. If they did not do so, and are now dead - what is the purpose of the cover-up? The government and the media could be having a fine old time saying "I told you so".

No one has answered this question and I have seen it asked on the other threads as well.

What is the reason for the cover-up?

[Sebastian Doyle]

34. Bush and the Repukes took some serious hits (and deservedly so) over Katrina

They don't want that happening in an election year.

[cwydro]

35. But they are not responsible for people defying an evacuation order

This is not their fault, so why a cover-up?

[Sebastian Doyle]

37. But they ARE responsible for the shitty economy and ridiculous gas prices

Which may have made evacuation more difficult for many of those people :(

[cwydro]

38. I'll give you that. But they say 90.000 did not evacuate.

That is not just people who felt they could not afford it.

What bothers me about this whole conspiracy thing is that most people are missing the real issues here.

It is a OUTRAGE that they will not let people return to their homes. That happened here after Georges and for that reason many will never evacuate again.

That is what we should be upset about. Imagine some government idiot telling you you cannot go back to your own home!

[Sebastian Doyle]

39. And I would say that brings it back to the question of a coverup

Why would they not want people to return to their homes, unless they're afraid those people would see something they weren't supposed to see. Like a lot of corpses. :(

[cwydro]

41. They would not let people return down here either.

And we had no corpses.

[MiniMe]

54. Because it is an election year and it reminds people of Katrina

Yes, Ike is completely different than Katrina. But Katrina was a horrible failure for the repubs, and they don't want to "remind" people of it.

[Two Americas]

63. answering

John Dean says that this administration is more secretive and dishonest than the Nixon administration. He has also said that lying and hiding information becomes a habit, a pattern. There does not need to be a reason. This administration has a long and well documented record of lying about just about everything, and withholding and suppressing information on an unprecedented scale.

Sfexpat and others have provided documented factual accounts of gaps and inconsistencies in the information flow. They have showed strong evidence that the Feds have had a heavy hand in all of this.

Given all of that, it seems odd to me that anyone would attack people for being suspicious, and for not assuming that all is well and there is nothing to be worried about in the performance of the Feds in the relief effort, and in the amount and quality of information that is getting to the general public.

It would seem more reasonable to me to jump to the conclusion that this government is lying to us than that they are not - if we are going to jump to any conclusions at all. The dog bites you 100 times, it seems reasonable to me to expect it to bite you again. What the dog's reason might be is not all that important. "That dog has no reason to bite you" does not mean the dog did not in fact bite you, and may again.

[EFerrari]

64. Once you know how to watch, it's an easy matter to see them

obfuscating, avoiding, spinning, eliding. To see it and to be able to show it. Their tactics are not invisible. And after the last eight years, we've all had a grad course in media manipulation.

One of the first things the Feds did in St. Paul was raid I Witness Video who was there to monitor police behavior.

The FBI leaked misinformation about Bruce Ivins because they had no case and they wanted to baffle people with bs. They leaked to the WaHo, to the LA Times and to the AP. Of those, only the WaHo has backtracked at all on the obvious bs they published.

Skeletor started blaming people who didn't evacuate as if those people were responsible for slow FEMA fullfillment to PODs in Houston and he sent his talking points out to the media who repeated them dutifully starting last Saturday night.

Remember, "everybody" thought Saddam had WMD?

We could probably come up with hundreds of examples.

[Imagevision]

36. The M$M doesn't find this a newsworthy story, Obama should do a flyover?

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

42. Search shows me you aren't very funny.

[Marnieworld]

43. That does seem strange to not even mention it

Especially when there are so many people worried about so many missing people. The whole thing seems odd how it's being conducted, no fly zone and no cameras in crucial areas. I wonder if we will ever know the truth anymore.

PS. Don't let the doodyheads on this thread get to you. They disrupt poorly. ;) What kind of puppy do you have?

[mopinko]

45. thom hartman reported today that feds declared a no fly zone over island.

now i ask you, what is it that they don't want people to fly over?

[EFerrari]

51. Total Sat and Sunday but modified on Monday to 2000 feet.

:shrug:

[KoKo]

47. kick...this is getting lost...even here on DU...one has to fight to get attention for the Ike News..

:kick:

[bertman]

49. As to WHY the administration might not want it to be discovered that there were thousands who died--

IF that is what happened--it would be another major hurricane disaster REGARDLESS of whether people were told to evacuate or not. They are keeping this out of the media because it reminds folks of Katrina and the aftermath.

One eyewitness account by a couple who decided to "ride it out" included their observation that while they were clinging onto a house for dear life they observed entire homes being swept past them at 30 mph. This was just after the eye passed, so it means there was an onslaught of homes and debris being driven by wind and water FOR HOURS. Now just think about this for a few moments and the picture of entire sections of an island being swept away into the sea or the bay or wherever is absolutely chilling. And even moreso if the number of people who reportedly stayed behind on Galveston Island was 24 THOUSAND, as has been frequently reported.

Ironically, there was a report out that the airspace over Galveston was not CLOSED, but simply restricted to 2000 feet or higher. Which simply means that altitudes of that magnitude do not lend themselves to very good documentation by normal news cameras. That is more in the range of much more specialized photographic equipment. So, technically it may not be "closed" but for all intents and purposes it is closed for media and public scrutiny.

But, the alternate explanation could be that there are so many rescue choppers and aircraft in the disaster area that they fear for mid-air collisions if they allow unrestricted flights into the airspace above Galveston. Or certainly it could gum up the works and slow things down if there were lots of unauthorized civilian air traffic. I'm just playing the devil's advocate here because I have no idea what type of air traffic there is over the island. Still, that does not address the question of why NO MEDIA FLIGHTS AT ALL are allowed below the 2000 foot ceiling.

Regarding people going back to their homes, if the mess I have seen from photos is the norm, it would definitely be extremely dangerous for people to be trying to drive around and search for their belongings--even if they could find their homes intact. And, of course, there's a high likelihood that the returning homeowners might start finding bodies everywhere. Not just a horrific possibility but also a public-health nightmare.

I do not begrudge the tight control of movement into and out of the island area but I STRONGLY CONDEMN the MEDIA BLACKOUT. This is just one more blow to our free access to information in a supposedly free society. And I think that it's going to backfire on them when all is said and done. Of course, I thought that about Katrina too, but then I always forget how short our national attention span is.

One more consideration to throw into the pot: someone mentioned that there was some type of military biohazard facility on Galveston Island. If that assertion is true, that may be another huge concern.

It's a sorry mess and an outrage how little we are being told and shown.

[countryjake]

50. Slightly off-topic, but here is an excellent report from ABC Channel 13...

including a long interview with Galveston mayor Thomas. She doesn't address the search you've mentioned, but she speaks on practically every thing else concerning the recovery of her island.

Galveston recovery faster than expected:

One on One interview with Galveston Mayor

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=weather/hurricane&id=6400690

(Note that there are many videos scrolling at that link, but the one that's most informative is titled "One on One Interview with Galveston Mayor")

[TxBlue]

52. Kick until Media start covering this story

The only story I saw was like 30 seconds on Rachel Maddow.

Nothing else. Barely any mention on Dallas stations.

Tons of fema defenders/pr on boards. Strange.

Thousands of people couldn't get out for various reasons but now Fema is major fubar.
Now NO ice for hurricane victims???? wtf? Are they even human, the fema people or reptilian slime creatures?

[chill_wind]

56. No big X's. "Discrete stickers." Early firsthand report from 2 reporters who stayed behind

September 15th

Authorities are still in search-and-rescue mode. About 24,000 people didn’t heed evacuation orders. Rescuers are leaving the dead in houses and moving on to look for the living.

Unlike in New Orleans after Katrina, they are not spray painting a giant "X" on a building when they find bodies. Instead, they are putting discrete stickers on the buildings. On the one hand, government officials seem to be trying to keep the media from portraying the true extent of the disaster, but on the other hand officers are tipping off reporters about deaths and rescues.

Rhiannon said the amount of buildings reduced to rubble suggests that more bodies will be found and the magnitude of the disaster will become clearer in the coming days.

from: http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20080915/NEWS01/809150284

X posting this from another thread that has fallen off the GP

[MadrasT]

57. Kicking again

because this situation pisses me off.

[uppityperson]

65. That bit about what X is for is wrong, not for dead bodies but indicates search status (more...)

"Unlike in New Orleans after Katrina, they are not spray painting a giant "X" on a building when they find bodies. Instead, they are putting discrete stickers on the buildings. On the one hand, government officials seem to be trying to keep the media from portraying the true extent of the disaster, but on the other hand officers are tipping off reporters about deaths and rescues."

Wrong:

The X was painted on to indicate search status. 1 quadrant of the X had the date was the date the X was painted. Another quad was who did the searching. There was a place for if the building hadn't been entered, with the idea that someone would come later and break into houses that were locked or otherwise not entered ("NE"). They were supposed to have at least looked through the windows though. There was a quadrant for IF they found bodies, or pets. The last quadrant was for various other things, depending on what group was doing it.

So, if you see anyone perpetuating this "X meant body", please correct them. There is enough misinformation going around already.


In the spring after Katrina, I must say it was chilling to see house after house with "NE" (no entry) on it, and neighborhoods where they weren't X'd (according to date) for a couple months. No, they didn't find all the bodies after Katrina and they will keep finding them here for some time, hopefully not yrs. Cadaver dogs helped after Katrina and will again here, but still didn't/won't find all the bodies. Look at the piles of debris, look at the rubble and overturned vehicles and all that. Look at all the collapsed houses. HOW can anyone search it all?

[chill_wind]

58. Missing persons message boards --heart-wrenching pleas and inquiries

ABC13
http://ktrk.typepad.com/abc13/2008/09/galveston-perso.html

khou.com

http://www.khou.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28278&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=d30a1d8b44bad31e3f2930970b76c856

[malaise]

59. Too sad

I'm watching updates here

http://www.khou.com/sharedcontent/video/makeASX.php?title=beloint_khou2&live=1

[chill_wind]

60. The demonization of the nameless, faceless, victims who didn't escape

has made me absolutely sick!! And those self-righteous, judgmental finger-waggers on the subject of "deserved" death and loss are like filthy flies all over the god damn internet at every one of these news article "comment" sites-- every one of them. "Proud of my country"? I'm revulsed beyond words at the portion of this country that has totally lost its humanity in times like these. Almost worse are the just plain indifferent. ALMOST.

[EFerrari]

62. Thanks, chill_wind.

These poor people. :(