Bodies Lie For Days Awaiting Retrieval

[buzzsaw_23]

Bodies lie for days awaiting retrieval
FEMA policies limit who can do the job

State still uncertain how many perished

By MICHELLE KRUPA
Staff writer

Traveling by pirogue through the flooded Broadmoor neighborhood Saturday, two men spotted a body floating in a side yard at Rocheblave and Octavia streets. They reported it to National Guardsmen and a civilian airboat operator, who said they were aware of it .

For 13 days in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the body of Alcede Jackson lay on a porch at 4732 Laurel St., wrapped in a plastic bag and covered in a blanket beneath a sign quoting the evangelist John and commending Jackson to "the loving arms of Jesus.''

Across town, a left turn at Fern Street in the Carrollton neighborhood provided a clear view of the corpse of a man lying face-down on the sidewalk near a vacant lot. He wore blue jeans. His head was uncovered. Residents who witnessed the scene also informed a pair of National Guardsmen stationed on North Claiborne Avenue. They said they knew.

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina tore a deadly path through the New Orleans area, grim sights like these still dotted the vacant urban landscape as the official number of bodies collected and sent to a makeshift morgue at St. Gabriel rose from Sunday's count of 197 by the Department of Health and Hospitals to 279 on Monday.


http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_13.html#079204

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[buzzsaw_23]

3. Sounds like

everyone playing the blame game that they are telling everyone not to play.

The Feds were guilty of willful negligence and malicious neglect at the least. The State was guilty of incompetence and corruption, at the least. The nation is guilty of institutional racism and structural poverty at the least.

[saigon68]

16. MEANWHILE BOATED BOSIES FLOAT IN ON THE TIDE

[wtbymark]

4. Sounds like GOP talking points to me

Blanco declared a state of emergency on that friday, look it up, i'm working.

[demnan]

5. Where did this post originate?

Did it come directly from the GOP talking points as issued forth from Karl Rove's ass?

[leftchick]

6. rush limpballs

sore anal opening.

[Coyote_Bandit]

7. Delete

[spinbaby]

2. It says something about the scope of the disaster...

...that there are still bodies on the street two weeks later.

[The Stranger]

11. No, I think it says something about the incompetence of the federal

government's response, and the incredible corruption that has infested the country in the form of a criminal administration.

Corruption, grift, political paybacks, sweet-heart deals, and behind-the-scenes payoffs are rampant, and the leader of FEMA being ousted is the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

[buzzsaw_23]

12. You said it better than I

in fewer words.

[speedingbullet]

8. Trying to Volunteer

I have been trying to volunteer to help with coroner duties. I have served as coroner. In my state the county attorney is the coroner. I have no medical training. I have some training in death investigation. I would be willing to make coffee, carry body bags or meet with victim's relatives, whatever. I have signed up on the US Health and Human Services website and contacted my state's Home land Security office. I have heard nothing. Any suggestions or Louisiana contacts?

[CottonBear]

9. Bu$h's campaign contributors, SCI, have a lockdown on mortuary services.

:( :grr: SCI is an evil company.

[noonwitch]

13. They've been driving family-owned funeral homes bankrupt for decades

I saw stories about them on the news a long time ago. Didn't Bush lie under oath about his connections to SCI when he was Governor of Texas?

[LisaM]

15. Didn't Joe Allbaugh have some connection to that whole funeral home thing?

Now that you mention it, it's jogging my memory. The plot thickens.

[saigon68]

10. SOUNDS LIKE BAGHDAD

[preciousdove]

14. Sounds like Uganda uner Idi Amin; beyond third world bodies in the streets

:cry:

[Skittles]

17. sounds like Bush's America

sounds just like it

[Xenotime]

18. Yup...

This is part of is grand plan.

[Megahurtz]

19. Yep, his and Poppy's "New World Order"

:sarcasm:

[doxieone]

20. BLANCO HAS HIRED FOR THE STATE a company..

WOOHOOOOOOO... Blanco has hired for the state a company to start the actual retrieval of bodies! She said the dead are not being given respect by FEMA.

I guess FEMA is too busy marking homes for someone ELSE to clear out the bodies, and Blanco got tired of waiting.

[doxieone]

21. Link to article about Pissed Off Blanco doing FEMA's job

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09_13.html#079389

State hires company to retrieve bodies.

snip

Blanco said she spoke to officials at FEMA and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the lack of progress in signing a contract and recovering bodies.

“I expressed my frustration regarding the lack of urgency and lack of respect involing recovery of our people who . . .were lost’’ in Hurricane Katrina, she said. “No one seems to be able to break through the bureauracy to get this done . . . I am angry and outraged . . . We have pleaded for contract resolution.

“More than a week ago, Secretary Chertoff told me plans would be put in place for a system of ‘recovery with respect. . . .’

“The failure to execute a contract for the recovery of our citizens has hurt the speed of recovery efforts.’’

Blanco said while body-recovery is a FEMA responsibility, “I cannot stand by while this vital operation is not being handled appropriately.’’

snip

[rainbow4321]

22. FEMA said on the scanner they don't collect the bodies..

This was a week ago...some FEMA ground worker said on the FEMA/local scanner it was not FEMA's job to pick up the bodies, that they would be leaving it to the military's "morgue" unit. So having all the FEMA workers in the world down there won't do shit for the bodies cuz they are just going to pass them right by....

[saigon68]

23. They smell REALLY BAD after rotting in the sun for a few days

These Bodies BLOAT UP TOO.

[Laughing Mirror]

24. Riveting video and transcript on Democracy Now yesterday

New Orleans Activist Points to Neglected Corpse as U.S. Military Passes Off Blame

Transcript and video of Amy Goodman asking passing soldiers and state troopers what they're going to do about the body that's been lying there on the ground decomposing for two weeks, and none of them seems to know.

She interviews community activist, former Black Panther, Malik Rahim.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/12/1426218

MALIK RAHIM: You could basically smell it from right here. You know, and the police, they pass by. They look at it and they ain't going to do nothing, you know, to pick it up.

AMY GOODMAN: Malik then walked us down the driveway next to the health center and lifted up a sheet of corrugated metal with an X revealing the dead body underneath.

MALIK RAHIM: Now, his body been here for almost two weeks. Two weeks tomorrow. All right. That this man's body been laying here. And there's no reason for it. Look where we at? I mean, it's not flooded. There's no reason for them to be, left that body right here like this. You mean, just totally disrespect. You know? I mean two weeks. Every day, we ask them about coming and picking it up. They refuse to come and pick it up. You can see, it's literally decomposing right here. Right out in the sun. Every day we sit up and we ask them about it. Because I mean, this is -- close as you can get to tropical climate in America. And they won't do anything about it.

. . .

We have talked to everyone from the army to the New Orleans Police, to the State Troopers, to – I mean, we have talked to everybody who we can. I even talked to Oliver Thomas, who is the councilman at large, yesterday, about this body. He said he was surprised to see that this body is still there. But it's been two weeks. Two weeks that this man has been just laying here.

. . .

[Historic NY]

25. Pure incompetence................

for weeks people have been passing bodies, floating or otherwise. How hard is it to send out some body bags with these people. At the very least they should be bagged and tagged. Now they are faced with a real mess. In the end these nameless beings will be just another cast off to a disaster.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

26. Not incompetence... they are waiting for the swamp to

absorb as many bodies as possible to lower the proven death rates.

Missing people can be claimed to be re-located later.

I am becoming more and more convienced this is a deliberate act.

[rainbow4321]

27. And those that die elsewhere..you know they won't be counted

Some media person (with their newly grown balls) needs to ask chimp's cronies if the evacuees who are dying around the country will be counted...AND point out that bodies FOUND doesn't equal "death count"..how many have been decomposed by the toxic water, washed out in that industrial size tube that is draining the city, or eaten by the wildlife.



http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=90058

A 58-year-old woman spent 30 agonizing hours on a bus to arrive at Camp Gruber in critical condition. She was taken to the hospital, but died a short time later. With her body hundreds of miles from home and her family also displaced by the hurricane, a Tulsa church took her in to give her a proper funeral Monday morning.

A Red Cross volunteer heard the tragic story and decided to do something about it. She helped organize a funeral service for Khaton in Tulsa. Red Cross volunteer Deborah Jones: "I just felt that had that been me or my family or even someone I knew I would want someone to be shown the respect and dignity that every human being deserves."

58-year-old Judy Khaton survived Hurricane Katrina and several days at the Superdome in New Orleans, only to be turned away at the Astrodome in Houston. She was on a bus for 30 hours, which doctors say could have caused the blood clot in her leg that eventually killed her.


The Red Cross says another evacuee staying at Camp Gruber died last week. They say the 68-year-old man had a pre-existing heart condition.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

30. Oh yeah, that's a given... just like in the Iraq/Afghani

war.

By now the wildlife has han plenty of time to do their work. I would not eat a crab from the Gulf for a long time.

[buzzsaw_23]

28. As bodies recovered reporters told 'no photos, no stories'

As bodies recovered, reporters are told 'no photos, no stories'
- Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 13, 2005



New Orleans -- A long caravan of white vans led by an Army humvee rolled Monday through New Orleans' Bywater district, a poor, mostly black neighborhood, northeast of the French Quarter.

Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside.

Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.

"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/13/MNG3HEMQHG1.DTL&type=printable

[Justice]

29. LA Governor signed contract to retrieve bodies b/c FEMA wasn't getting it

done.