Fewer Bodies Than Expected Found in Sweeps

AP ^ | September 9, 2005 | DON BABWIN

[West Coast Conservative]

Authorities said Friday that their first systematic sweep of the city found far fewer bodies than expected, suggesting that Hurricane Katrina's death toll may not be the catastrophic 10,000 feared.

"I think there's some encouragement in what we've found in the initial sweeps that some of the catastrophic deaths that some people predicted may not have occurred," said Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief.

Ebbert declined to give a new estimate of the dead.

Authorities turned their attention to counting and removing the dead in a grid-by-grid search of the city after spending days cajoling, persuading and all but strong-arming the living into leaving the shattered city because of the danger of fires and disease from the filthy, corpse-laden floodwaters.

"Numbers so far are relatively minor as compared to the dire projections of 10,000," Ebbert said.

Mayor Ray Nagin had suggested over the weekend that the death toll could climb that high, and authorities ordered 25,000 body bags as they started gathering up the dead across a landscape awash in corpses.

Separately, Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell, commanding general of 82nd Airborne Division, said the last of the bodies at the convention center would be taken out on Friday. Thousands of people took shelter there after the hurricane for days with little or no food or water, in what became an increasingly chaotic and violent situation.

In a small sign of progress, authorities said the New Orleans airport will reopen to commercial flights on Sept. 19. Caldwell said water and power are functioning at the airport.

[Holicheese]

Bush has released gators who ate the bodies.
Howard Dean has proof.

[ncountylee]

Wasn't Cammile under Clinton?

[Bapper64]

This really has become my main source of news. Even though I know Fox News is far from perfect, it would be nice to have more captioning. I have sent an e-mail on their web site asking for a snail mail name and address of someone to personally write to at Fox. I'll send you a private reply with it if you would like to write.

[monday]

"they sound disappointed."

Some people have a morbid side. Before Katrina hit I stupidly predicted on FR that casualties probably wouldn't be as high as everyone was predicting. I was quickly put in my place by several posters who informed me that casualties would be in the multiple thousands.

The US is not a third world country, where thousands would have died if a similar sized storm had hit. New Orleans turned out to far more third world than I expected however.