It SHOULD be possible for FEMA to take what they know for sure about some localities and make a model that would predict the death toll to within 10%.
Makes you wonder what we will be told about a bioterror attack.
The numbers are easy to fudge, as long as you never issue a comprehensive list of the names of the dead. If there's a list, then anybody who knows about names that are not on the list can start raising a stink on blogs all over cyberspace.
But as long as they just say "XXX deaths" how can you tell, unless you or a group of friends can compile a list of names that's bigger than XXX?