Leni, those of us who've been on this pretty active thread for what seems like forever have seen a few posts indicating that the reason we don't have death toll estimates yet is that the accent has been on rescuing the living, not recovering the dead.
One report had it that rescuers were actually brushing aside floating bodies to get to live folks in need of rescue.
Upthread I posted an article indicating officials in just one Mississippi county expect to find "hundreds" of fatalities.
The unfortunate thing is that it appears they're not "skirting around" a body count -- they've just been too busy to get to doing one.
We seem to forget this thing is only around 48 hours old.
A poster put up a report on FR this morning from a paramedic source that those on the ground know there are bodies all over and that it's not being reported. Immediately this poster was trashed by some.
My point is that I believe the report from our freeper's source will be borne out and that the MSM is ignoring this aspect although they are assiduous in investigating every hang nail suffered by our troops in Iraq.
If the boots on the ground observe widespread corpses, then it should be reported. If the boots are debunked or are exaggerating, this should be reported also. The subject is being skirted, in my opinion. Maybe it's an unspoken agreement among the MSM to avoid panic, I don't know.
No one is castigating officials in the hurricane zones. They can only count the casualties as they are verified.
Leni