Posted on 09/09/2005 11:05:16 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This has to be very disappointing news to the 'RATS and their toadies in the Liberal "media." We may need to put the NYT and WaPo on suicide watch.
dont for get nancy"i need more make-up" pelosi.......she will blame every death on "w'.....where is the spineless gop?????? anybody out there ????
Very peculiar things going on down there. Mandatory evac was illegal before the hurricane, before the flood; but it's fine and dandy now. Cops are getting vacations in Vegas while someone else confiscates weapons from homeowners who will later be forcibly evacuated. Commercial flights will resume in about a week, yet nobody can LIVE there, so what's with the commerce? Hired security may keep guns to protect those who can afford to hire them. Reporters may stay, as long as they make no trouble, but not residents. It really looks like the President is giving them enough rope to hang themselves, but in the process they're hurting the people, the law, the respect for the law; and the President's reputation is being tarnished while the Democrats' stock is rising.
Are they searching inside the homes, or just counting the floaters in the streets?
I've been saying the exact same thing.
What for? No residents, no businesses.
I take it there'll only be flights to and from Las Vegas?
Ummm, am I missing something? Who wants to go there right now?????
Greyhound Ray must have been sandbagging (pun definitely intended) with that 10,000 number...
MSM must be deeply saddened.
I heard a rumor that things were so "normal" at the Astrodome the reporters started going into the line and saying stuff like "did you hear what that dude behind you just said about your girl?" to see if they could raise a little ire for the cameras.
/kidding
//sorta
How many deaths were there at the Superdome? I didn't see a number anywhere.
I read somewhere that they found 12 dead bodies at the convention center, but I never saw a number for the superdome, and I don't know whether the number for the convention center was accurate.
Yes, they are still there. What is your point?
They are searching inside the houses. After each house is searched, they are marked if they have a body inside or that it was searched and no one was found.
When the time comes to collect the bodies, most of the houses have already been identified.
They don't have enough refrigerator trucks or coroners yet to do identification. That time will come.
I'm sticking with my initial prediction of around 2500 in NOLA. Someone else suggested 25000, but I doubt it will get that high.
ROFL
1000 - didn't Cammile kill 3000?
Yep - press won't like that. Takes some of the wind out of their sails
They've done a grid search of some of the flooded zones, and this includes looking inside homes. They've found plenty of roofs with holes cut in them, where people used axes to escape their attics. They haven't found many bodies. But they haven't searched the neighborhoods that were flooded first; where the flooding was worst.
Has anyone seen anything like an estimate of missing persons (lists of names of persons unaccounted for)?
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