Posted on 09/06/2005 6:48:46 PM PDT by Job03
BILOXI: Coroner insists death count is accurate
Death toll is not being held back
BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
Sun Herald
EAST BILOXI - The Katrina death toll is not being held back, the Harrison County coroner said as body recovery teams under his direction entered a new phase - searching with heavy equipment.
"There is no reason for me to deceive the public or the news media because that's not going to help the situation either," Coroner Gary Hargrove said. "Because if we start reporting low numbers and keep them low and then all of a sudden, 'bam,' we walk in and put high numbers on it, then you've created another problem. You've created deception."
On Monday, the official death toll for the Mississippi Gulf Coast was 136. Gov. Haley Barbour on Sunday said he expected the unofficial but credible total in Mississippi was 167 and expected to rise.
Prior to a Mass at Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral in Biloxi on Saturday, Biloxi Bishop Thomas Rodi said he had doubts that the death tolls reported through Hargrove's office were accurate. Earlier, Rodi visited the Sun-Herald's offices and said he believed there were "hundreds" of storm dead in the area.
"They should release all of the names or none of the names," Rodi said during an interview Saturday at his offices at the cathedral.
Hargrove, however, said that all Katrina dead, including the unidentified, have been included in the daily Emergency Operations Center tally.
"The community does not need deception at this point in time. They need to be able to trust their elected officials," Hargrove said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunherald.com ...
Libs and media very disappointed in low death counts in Mississippi.
yep -- much lower than 10,000
The 10,000 count seems way overblown, like somebody just pulled it out of a hat. It's a nice round number, so they used it. Irresponsible.
MS had much better planning, leadership and decision making by it's residents. I just don't believe (on a per capita basis) the same number of residents stayed as New Orleans.
Mississippi, which had the more fierce experience with the hurricane has handled things well. The governor is in charge, fema is working.
There are a few things different in NO. Incompetent leaders and the flood AFTER the hurricane.
167 souls, may they rest in peace in life everlasting with our Lord. The miracle for which we should all be grateful is that there are not more. What is WRONG with people who seem disappointed that there is not a higher death count?
167 seems like a pretty serious number all by itself.
Perhaps the people of Mississippi listened a little closer to their leaders and sought shelter ahead of the storm.
To be honest, the devistation is Mississippi and Alabama is far worse than NO. In NO people are already moving back in, some businesses in the surrounding Parishes are thinking of opening back up. A LOT of the houses look like they can be salvaged in some of the areas.
My guess (and it is just a guess) is that the "official" who said it could be as high as 10,000 was probably responding to the incessant questions that kept being asked by every reporter to every official in every interview...
"Could it be in the hundreds?"
"Could it be in the thousands?"
"Could it be as many as 10,000?"
After saying "We don't really know," the official probably answered, "It could be, we don't know."
Since day one, there has been a quest for a body count.
For days after 9/11, people still tried to have the death toll at 20,000+. I would be very surprised to see the death toll on the Gulf Coast to rise to the levels being bandied about.
One dead is too many. I wish the media would just report instead of trying to make things always seem worse than they are.
Then you have this, which seems overblown, but a completely different tale.
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Funeral director deploys to hurricane region
A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there.
"DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.
His partner, Dan Hicks, of Paducah, Ky., was deployed Monday. Buckner, of Dickson, is on standby. Their funeral home is one of several collection sites for donations to be taken to the Red Cross in Fayetteville on Wednesday for transfer to places in need.
The 40,000 estimate does "not include the number of disinterred remains that have been displaced from ... mausoleums," Buckner told the Times-Gazette Monday.
Since New Orleans is below sea level, in-ground burial is impossible.
More: http://www.t-g.com/story/1116806.html
Gosh, I guess there ARE benefits to locating cities above sea level! Who knew????
The 10,00 number came from the idiot Mayor.
Mayor Nagin was basing his estimate on the voters lists. He forgot that actual bodies will be recovered this time, as contrasted with the WTC disaster when real thousands of people were incinerated.
The mayor of New Orleans used that number.
You know whose fault it was.
Going by how many stayed behind, and how many were rescued... the number was not that outlandish. This story is great news if true, but I somehow seriously doubt that totals will be that low in MS. The destruction was like nothing we have seen in over a hundred years, and we know many did not leave.
Are you saying that a good number on the NO voter lists are already dead (and have been for years)?
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