They are not on the KAFB either.
Hey, where's the MS Ping??????? Are you still on the lookout for the zillions of dead bodies?
btw, i'm just kiddin' about the ping. i just happened to be up. by the time i'm finished typing this, you'll probably have pingy-dingyed ever'one.
Hell rooters can't even find em.
The local coroners office posted on Sunday a list of around 600 people reported as missing from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But with evacuees spread out in at least 34 U.S. states, officials are confident that most of them will be found alive.
http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=BAL265671
Two weeks after storm, Mississippi finds its feet
Mon 12 Sep 2005 2:56 PM ET
By Crispian Balmer
GULFPORT, Miss., Sept 12 (Reuters) - Southern Mississippi's clean-up operation moved into top gear on Monday, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the coastline, with some major employers reopening for business and debris clearance starting in earnest.
Although much of the Mississippi state beachfront is little more than a ribbon of rubble, life further inland is gradually returning to normal.
Most of the roads are cleared of fallen trees, power has been restored to all properties that can safely take electricity and most homes now have running water and proper sewage access.
"It is just absolutely amazing that 2 weeks after Aug. 29 we are standing where we are at," said Colonel Joe Spraggins, director of civil defense in sea-facing Harrison county, one of the worst-hit areas in Mississippi.
"The streets are open, we have red lights that are working. The businesses are going back to work today, people are actually going back to their jobs today," Spraggins told a news conference.
Among the businesses that reopened on Monday were the major Northrop Grumman ship building yard near Pascagoula, local radio said. The tax collection service also hung up "business as usual" signs on their doors.
"I'm sure you wanted to hear that," Spraggins said.
Although most of the world's attention has focused on the plight of New Orleans, Mississippi bore the full brunt of the eye of the storm, which veered into the state at the last moment, bringing with it a lethal sea surge.
DEAD AND MISSING
So far, rescue teams have recovered 162 bodies from Mississippi's six, southernmost counties, with just 46 of the dead identified.
The local coroners office posted on Sunday a list of around 600 people reported as missing from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But with evacuees spread out in at least 34 U.S. states, officials are confident that most of them will be found alive.
"The numbers of (new bodies) that we are finding everyday are going down," Spraggins said. "Hopefully we won't find many more."
After days of carefully sifting through debris in their search for storm victims, some of the worst-hit towns, including Gulfport and Bay St. Louis, called in the big garbage trucks on Monday to start the clear out.
Initial estimates suggest there are 16 million cubic yards (12 million cubic metres) of hurricane debris littering the state of Mississippi, enough to fill 1,000 football fields to a depth of 10 feet (3 metres) each.
That estimate could be conservative, given the almost total destruction in many places.
Officials at the seaside town of Pass Christian say only 300 of the 8,500-strong population have houses to return to. Tommy Longo, mayor of nearby Waveland, says that of his 8,000 residents, just 25-30 families are left living in the wreckage.
In Bay St. Louis, Mayor Ed Favre reckons half of his town's 4,000 homes were destroyed, while officials in the larger towns of Biloxi and Gulfport think they probably lost even more property.
But despite the scenes of catastrophic destruction, residents and the authorities are all promising to rebuild.
"We will be better than ever, you can count on that," Spraggins said.