The bodies and the death toll in New Orleans will never be known because

We will never know the number of people who died in their attics.
We will never know the people who floated away.
We will never know the people who clung to their roofs for two days but fell off the third,
We will never know the people who died alone in their houses
We will never know the people who fell off of or floated under overpasses
We will never know the people who tried to swim or wade the waters for help

Most, but not all, of these people were the anonymous poor

And now the levees have breached again and washed their poor houses clear of their embarassing corpses.

and the unknown, uncounted dead.
Just like in Iraq.

they have already been bulldozing so I wonder how may people they have already scooped up and not accounted for.
Not breaking in to check the whole house was another strategy to lose the dead.

Obviously, they weren't trying to find the sick, the unconscious, the near dead, or the actual dead. They didn't want to find anyone. And so they didn't. Nope, no one there. Move on.

It's hard to imagine, but it happened many times I'm sure.

friends and family elsewhere.

Any talk of death toll seems to have gone away entirely.

they won't be able to cover up the final toll

ppl are not going to stop looking for their missing

many of the ppl who did not leave gentilly would be the older ppl & even if their younger relatives were total uncaring shitheads, which would not be the case 99 percent of the time, they would still be seeking their missing parents & grandparents for financial reasons such as insurance settlements for the destroyed homes

the truth will out

aren't there 517 of them ((((missing)))), where are their bodies?

as none of them have died, then they have no remains to be collected

they were evacuated first, by military helicopter, while ppl who committed no crime waited for days longer

someone gave the link to the real story from nola.com on the original thread so i suggest you read it

My niece is helping in Montgomery, Alabama with the relief effort,
how is Rita impacting New Orleans area, I don't have CNN, I have
to get my news from the computer.

the last time i got thru, around 6 PM central, he said there were very short strong bursts from the feeder bands but then longer calm periods

they seem to expect flooding, mandatory evac of orleans as you know, mandatory evac of st. tammany parish south of hwy 22/190 from madisonville to slidell, this would be storm surge

no mandatory evac of upper jefferson, reason given, there is not sufficient gas & supplies to evac the area

reports of tornadoes but he didn't see any

at the time i spoke to him the flooding affected only previously severely flooded areas in orleans where there are less or no ppl

i'm v. worried but he felt he could save our house from more damage if he went back & also he wanted to get in some hours at his job, it is tough, losing all these days of work

let's all hope the storm moves quickly & does not stall, no one needs any more water

I have been so worried, she is a Red Cross volunteer and has 3 kids
13, 7 and a (4 year old adopted from China). The news has great graphics but little news. Thanks for the update.

her efforts & the red cross efforts are much appreciated

I gave her a button for Christmas that said Jesus loves Republicans but
votes democratic. She loved it.

Even a DOC employee said all the records were destroyed. The survivors who swam from their locked cages into the flood said several had died in the lower cells after being left without food and water for days.

Keep kidding yourself because you're not kidding anybody else.

there are two versions of the story & i guess i believe the original version & not the brand new more colorful version which does not fit into the known timeline

if there are any missing prisoners, their families will demand knowledge of their whereabouts, & the authorities will either have to prove where those prisoners are located or they will have to declare them dead in the storm

we are not animals, this is the south, no one will sit by & let the dead & missing be forgotten!

of how they were left locked in cages and left for dead without food or water for almost a week.

Animals wouldn't even treat each other so callously. But you're correct in saying they will not be forgotten, they will be buried in mass graves and there will be no body count.

But, to quote you WHATEVER. :eyes:

See posts 10, 20 and 48 in particular.

Indeed, in this thread there is no "post 48".

their acct of the prisoner evacuation was that all were safely taken away by military helicopter

mary landrieu (our senator) later told on cnn how she "might have to punch somebody" because of all the shit she took for the prisoners being evac'd safely in front of other ppl, who were pretty p.o.ed that prisoners were picked up first

this was early days, around thursday sept. 1

i don't know how to get links that old off nola.com but a poster in the other thread on the subject had it, maybe a more gifted searcher could find it for me?

i do want all the missing accounted for, if any prisoner is lost, it's a disgrace, but i also don't want to get involved in spreading a story that sounds fishy to me

You live with your husband and 2 kids in New Orleans. Against your best advice, your husband decides to stay with the house and your 2 dogs while you and the kids evacuate to higher ground. House floods. No husband or husband body. He has life insurance which will help you continue a life for the family. What happens? His body may have been in that house in the Ninth Ward. What happens to the wife and kids in this situation?

if there is no body it does take longer to get a death certificate & get a settlement from yr insurance co. but there is no insurer in the land who is unaware of what happened on the gulf coast, the family will get their settlement, it will take longer, i would expect a delay of several weeks to several months until the insurer is satisfied that the husband is never going to reappear

I will never be the same.

people died as we thought" meme. I even told my mother that we'd probably never know the real numbers. I didn't tell her why I thought so.

I think the government is going to fudge the numbers. Damn. I wish I weren't this cynical. :(

If I'm wearing my tinfoil too tightly, please tell me. I'd be delighted to know that fewer died than anticipated. :cry:

the numbers will be high, it is just taking a long time to collect & especially to identify the bodies

in the first week or so, they were not collecting bodies at all because they were still rescuing ppl alive

today the collection of bodies was suspended because of rita

it is just going to take a long time

on the coast women's bodies are hard to identify because they were swept away w.out identification, which we usually carry in a purse, while men might have their ID in their wallet, & if this is still on the body, it saves some time

but it is very very very slow going