WP: The Slow Drowning of New Orleans

[Pirate Smile]

The Slow Drowning of New Orleans
At the junction of the Mississippi and the Gulf, a city long knew that a powerful hurricane was inevitable. As development robbed the region of natural defenses, man's fight to hold back nature would ultimately fail.

By Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 9, 2005; Page A01

Two months before Hurricane Katrina, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) gave a chilling preview of its rampage. "This isn't a simulation of World War III, or 'The Day After Tomorrow,' or Atlantis -- but one day, it may be Atlantis," Vitter warned at a hearing. Then he displayed a computer model of a Category 4 hurricane smashing New Orleans and flooding the city under 18 feet of water.

"It's not a question of if," Vitter said. "It's a question of when."

New Orleans had always been described as a disaster waiting to happen, a city in a bowl below sea level. accused the federal government of neglecting the city's manmade and natural protections -- by underfunding levees that were designed only for a Category 3 storm and stalling a massive plan to restore Louisiana's tattered web of coastal marshes.

"Instead of spending millions now, we are going to spend billions later," he said.

But as Vitter was forecasting destruction, he was also holding up legislation that would have approved levee upgrades and launched the coastal restoration plan. And the holdup involved an industry-backed provision that Vitter had inserted to help Louisiana's loggers deforest cypress swamps, which would reduce the natural hurricane defenses the restoration was supposed to rebuild.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/08/AR2005100801458.html

[indepat]

1. Say one thing, do something contrary

[Paranoid Pessimist]

2. Does anyone know what the Katrina New Orleans death toll is?

I haven't heard. Usually that's one of the totals that's first reported, as in Pakistan.

A lot of stuff just isn't reported. When the Katrina disaster was happening there was all that coverage of the non-evacuated and everyone kept saying "the poor and black are finally appearing on TV, they're being seen and heard." Well, they ain't being seen and heard any more. How are they doing? Has anyone gone into the shelters where (I guess) many are still staying and asked, "How you guys doing in here?"

But the lack of a death toll is particularly disturbing. Like if they put it out there the country will get all upset again, but if they just don't mention it ...

[rodeodance]

3. curious silence on death toll -I have seen it but you have to dig for it.

I haven't heard. Usually that's one of the totals that's first reported, as in Pakistan.

[rodeodance]

4. read someplace that it hit over 1,000 (this weekend but forget where

I read this).

[usafguy99]

5. Last I heard the total was about 1224 for all states.

[Irish Mastiff]

6. The Katrina toll is undoubtably higher than the official toll.

The official toll for Louisiana was 1003 on Saturday. In New Orleans they still haven't searched all the houses, although they called off the search.
The death toll they report isn't the total number of dead bodies they have. They only count in the official death toll those who drowned, were killed by wind, or if they died in a hospital because of the electricity going out. Everybody who died of dehydration or heat stroke isn't counted. In Jefferson Parish, they had 152 bodies on Sept 5th. Only 20 of them were counted as hurricane deaths. If that same ratio holds for all of New Orleans, we are looking at closer to 7000 dead.
Also in New Orleans, some bodies were tagged by relatives, who then delivered them to the authorities. When they went to get the bodies back for burial, there was no record of the body.
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and the official morgue refuses not only to release them for burial but EVEN TO ADMIT THEY HAVE THE BODY. What possible reason, except to suppress the official numbers?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
Thread title: LAT: "Families Lose Loved Ones Again- in a Bureaucratic Mire" BODIES TAKEN

---------------snip---------------------

Read all of the thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4953733


It Mississippi it is even stranger. You don't count in the death toll there unless you are identified. After a body has been left out in 90 to 100 degree weather, floating in water, being eaten by rats, it is rather difficult to be identified. The entire death toll in the state is 221. In just one town they had reported over 800 bodies. You do the math.