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September 21, 2005
ARE THE BODIES AND BODY COUNT BEING DELIBERATELY OBSCURRED?
I first started considering this possibility on Sep. 9. Only a few days after it was widely reported that FEMA was directing news media not to photograph bodies, a news story blanketed the world press, reporting that "Fewer Bodies Than Expected Found in Sweeps". Granted, the source of that news was New Orleans director of Homeland Security Terry Ebberts -- not FEMA, but at least some observers assert that Ebberts is desparately trying to divert attention from his own failures in the past two weeks.
Morgues and Refrigerator Trucks -- No Funerals
But later that same day I heard a radio report of refrigerator trucks moving in and out of areas where FEMA had turned news crews away (I'm going to look for corroboration, or at least the original source, and post it here later). I found additional reports of refrigerator trucks carting the dead from various local news sources.
The next day (Sept. 10) Alice Jackson, a stringer for Time magazine from Springs Miss., whose house was destroyed by Katrina wrote the following in her story, "Life After Katrina":
"There have been no funerals, and we are wondering why. My sister-in-law, who works at the hospital, says the morgue is full and they are using refrigerator trucks. But why are there no funerals? The newspaper does not have obits. Why? Are we denying that people died, or are we saving up all this grief to torment ourselves with after we begin to truly recover? Why would we not begin to bury the dead?"
"Some of us took over morgue operations, helping them run the morgue and do autopsies, logging bodies in and out," funeral director Gene Pellerin told reporters for Lafayette, LA's Daily Advertiser Sept. 12. "Some people were tasked to build racks in refrigerator trucks, and those went out and did recovery," Pellerin said.
Bay St. Louis, Miss. resident Grant Tingstrom, 46 told the St. Augtine Record, " 'You can't get a straight answer to how many people were killed. We're all seriously disappointed in George W.' The official number published in the Biloxi newspaper, is 160 dead in four stricken counties. Tingstrom says, 'They're lying.' Andrew Arceneaux, a volunteer firefighter with East Hancock Volunteer Fire Protection District, said he was involved in search and rescue after the storm. "We pulled 60 bodies about two streets from the shoreline," he said, adding there were 10 refrigerator trucks containing bodies in the city..." (Read full story in new window.)
Let's not forget, also, that journalists were eventually barred from the Superdome, from which there were scattered reports of Katrina survivors dying by the hour of thirst and overheating. (Those reports, I have no real corroboration for so take them with a grain of salt -- or do some and tell me! Previous reports of rapes and assaults in the Superdome were publicly refuted by Capt. John Bryson of the New Orleans police department's sex crimes unit, who happened to be in charge of the 80 or so police officers at the Superdome. He told television reporters he was upset that the hurricane victims at the Superdome were being portrayed as criminals in the reporting spin and that, in fact, "thugs were few" in the Superdome and the crowd largely "policed themselves." He said two attempted rapes were reported, and the individuals arrested. Obviously, from thousands of miles away, I have no way to know which, if either tale from the Superdome, holds more truth. This Chicago Tribune gives some color on this.)
MSNBC has news reported that The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had 6,000 adults and 2,400 children reported missing. Of course, we must consider that most of the missing were likely separated in the diaspora to Texas and other outlying areas. A decent benchmark to determine whether the deathtoll is being tweaked, will to review NCMEC's "missing" numbers in a month or two. If they still have a thousand or more missing, and we are still being told that less than 1000 people died in the Gulf Coast region, then we'll know something ain't right.
***UPDATE***Sept. 22, 2005
For the first time in many days, the question of Katrina body count hit the news again. Below I post a link to a number of those reports. The main news for all of these stories is that (1) the Katrina body count has surpassed 1000, and (2) authorities still expect to find many more bodies from U.S. What is curious in the coverage is that, generally, the headlines from U.S. news sources leverage point (1), e.g."Katrina's Death Toll Climbs Past 1,000," while those from international news sources focus on point (2), e.g. "Many more bodies expected to be unearthed in New Orleans."
9/22/05 body-count stories (opens in new window).
***UPDATE***Nov. 22, 2005
6644 still missing -- stat hasn't changed much in last few months.
Posted by MJuhre at September 21, 2005 02:28 PM