"thousands of bodies hanging in trees"???
See, again I think that's reading too much into the post. I think probably several hundred in trees and another thousand elsewhere on the ground or in houses for many miles of coastline.
The hanging in trees thing is a powerful image that sticks with a person just like it did after the lesser Camille, so it's natural to be overly focused on that. But by all means I don't think that's the only place people ended up. But where the water pushed back to the woods and then began to recede, the trees do make sense.
Consider the storm surge was estimated to be 26' people would have to run up three flights of stairs to get away, fighting a current. Anyone remember the videos of those folks running up the stairs in that hotel and the camera shot of people on the ground being washed away? Even a healthy 200lb man whoops, 200 lb man, didn't want to anybody to read it as 2001 b man, is no match for that tidal force.