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 ...
Brown secretly moved the bodies out in order to save face.
None of these dead folks will miss their next opportunity to vote for Nagin or Blanco, however.
It'll be less than predicted. It's common to overestimate. After hurricane Charlie last year some said there were bodies stacked up on the trailer parks. It never happened.
I assume by "sweeps" they are referring to what is plainly visable street-to-street. I'm fearful of what will be found when houses are entered.
Hoping for the best,
-U.
The official death toll from Camille was 256, if memory serves. The present storm has already exceeded this. I've been afraid that a lot of people died in houses that "survived Camille". I hope that's not correct, and the latest information is that perhaps the death toll will be hundreds not thousands, outside of New Orleans.
NOOOO?? You don't say?
Let's hope that the number stays lower than $1000 and I bet it will.
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"
WHERE IS THE FED DA OF NO?????
"How many deaths were there at the Superdome?"
None - they had better NG presence and food/water
see post 47.
Do you have a definitive source for that NONE claim?
""Numbers so far are relatively minor as compared to the dire projections of 10,000," Ebbert said.
I'm sticking with my initial prediction of around 2500 in NOLA. Someone else suggested 25000, but I doubt it will get that high."
I'mm holding off on numbers - there is NO but don't forget the string of barrier islands that disappeared - plus Miisissippi took the big hit. I guess the big question is - Worse than Galveston?
It was obvious from the git-go that the 10,000 figure was hype to create more of a sense of disaster.
Gators got 'em... ;)
"Has anyone seen anything like an estimate of missing persons (lists of names of persons unaccounted for)?"
There are lists and they are vast - but don't forget there is no phone service yet - it'll take weeeks - but one list on the net had 50 names per page and it seemed like ten pages to get past the aarons
Thank heavens for that!
I remember that. They were estimating 50,000 had the people in the towers gotten to work on time.
Or gators. How are they going to count those washed back into the sea? There is still a lot of junk around. Probably a lot under that mess.
People who live on Barrier islands are a) rich, and b) not stupid. I'm betting virtually all of them got out. Mississippi was better prepared, and they are not finding anywhere near the number of bodies there (although there is no doubt the receeding waters might have carried them away).
But this story was about NO, not the other parishes and counties of Mississippi.
""None - they had better NG presence and food/water""
"Do you have a definitive source for that NONE claim?"
google "deaths at superdome" - there were some casualties there but one was a suicide and there were a couple heart attack type things - but no violent deaths.
"I bet if the dead have autopsy's performed all but a small handful will have died from the hurricane and not lack of food and water."
I would think there are virtually no hurricane deaths - but lots of heart attacdks, strokes, heat exhaustion (a day in an attic with no water!!!)
But there will be tons of drownings from the flood caused by canals that did not have locks on them - how f'in stupid.
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