Don't forget that all the cemeteries will have bodies floating out of them, too. The sealed caskets literally float right up through the earth, because they're so much more buoyant than the soaked earth they lie in. Once they pop to the surface (and they literally pop up, it's the freakiest thing you've ever seen), they get knocked around, hit by debris, etc., and before long, the caskets come open.
When Albany, GA, got flooded in '94, they had dozens and dozens of bodies found in the trees. Most of them had been dead long before the floods, though.
Good friend of mine is from there, her family is in law enforcement. They did retrieve hundreds of bodies . . . but almost all of them were not recently deceased.
The Public Works people wound up having to handle it. There was one poor fellow who was so grossed out by it all that he applied for disability . . .
We can hope that a lot of the bodies they're finding down there are floating out of the graveyards.
Good point. I think the water surge is going to be a factor, because we have already seen so many examples of the water simply moving through and taking everything with it. The same kinds of things happened in 1993 during the 500 year flood.
The Biloxi-Gulfport area appears to be ground-zero, and that is probably where we are going to see the highest death toll. Reports say the water traveled several miles inland, so for all we know that is where the above mentioned, happened.
Whether the dead are suspended in trees or buried under debris is irrelevant. It only matters that people have died, a number which we don't yet know.