FR: Paramedic - "Thousands dead in MS"

[redsoxliberal]

I know it is from FR, but I can see no reason as to why someone would lie... Found it in a weather forum I am a regular at. Will understand if this is deleted.

"It is with heavy heart I write this...

I have finally reconnected with my best friend who is a paramedic who was sent from Georgia 2 days ago to Gulf Port, Mississippi before the hurricane hit.

He just reached me within the last 10 mins via emergency cell phone to tell me he was alive.

Thousands of bodies have been discovered throughout Mississippi in Gulf Port, Waveland,Hancock County,Bay of St.Louis.

They are hanging in trees and they are pulling them out 30 at a time. Entire families found drowned in their homes and washing up on shore.

The stories he could tell me were brief. National Guard is on the scene and arresting anyone seen on the streets.

The numbers are staggering and what I have been told tonight will shake people to their foundation as the numbers will be coming out in the next 24-hours of just how many people have actually perished in these and 3 other beach communities.

More to follow...."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473894/posts

[friesianrider]

1. I hope it isn't true.

I really, really do. Reminds me of a replay of the tsunami. :(

Given that it is coming from FRetardville, I'm going to hope it is a bunch of garbage like the rest of it...let's hope.

[progressivebydesign]

2. How awful. Was it that MS was taken by surprise in this?

There was so much focus on Louisiana that I wonder if MS was just hit unprepared.

[redsoxliberal]

3. exactly... only part of the coast was evac'd

that said... I think there are upwards of 1K dead in NOLA as well... look at the flooding.

[jobycom]

5. The storm surge was greater than anyone thought possible

They were expecting a 15-20 foot surge, and wound up with a 22 to maybe even 30 foot surge. Areas that were above ground during Camille were wiped out. From the footage I've seen of Biloxi and Gulfport, and knowing that Long Beach, Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis was hit harder, I can imagine a lot of dead.

I survived Camille when I was four in Bay St. Louis. Honestly, if I had lived there now, I'd have been tempted to stay. This hurricane was supposed to have 125-140 mph winds and a 15 foot storm surge, compared to Camille's 190 mph winds and 24 foot surge. People didn't think this would be as bad. But for some reason, it was much worse. I've heard some say it was because of the way it hit the Coast, and the spread and speed of the hurricane, which all made the surge so dramatic. I don't know, I'm sure it will be analyzed in great detail. But the bottom line is that people who were in regions that were safe during Camille figured they'd be safe here, and there were probably many who figured that Camille had barely touched where they lived, so this one shouldn't reach it. I know I let my guard down, and assumed it was going to be a minor hurricane once it started weakening. On paper, it looked no worse than others I've watched, like Elena. In reality, it was very different.

I hope "thousands" is an over-estimate. These freepers believe rumors easily, and they can't count, as reports of their massive war support gatherings prove. But I'm terrified the number is true.

Those are all my guesses, I have no inside knowledge.

[redsoxliberal]

8. surge was forecasted for 24hr+ to be 25-30ft

btw, the highest report I heard was over 30... but if people were expecting 15 they were not listening to forecasts.

[jobycom]

13. It weakened as it got closer

First, no one believed the 25-30 foot, that's just too high, especially once the hurricane started weakening. This thing was never as strong as Camille, so people thought the storm surge would be proportionate, and once it started weakening, people relaxed even more.

The reports just before landfall were closer to 15-18 foot surges. The storm had weakened, or so they were saying. I'm not convinced it really weakened as much as they claimed. Plus, it was still heading west until just before landfall.

One other thing was evacuation routes. People couldn't head west because of the New Orleans evacuation. There is only one highway north, and it was supposed to be packed. The highway east towards Mobile was supposedly blocked for a while by an accident in the tunnel. So some people may have tried to leave, heard how bad the traffic was, heard that the storm had weakened, and returned. We'll see if that turns out to be a factor.

As for what the final storm surge turns out to be, we don't know yet. If it was over 30, that would be just unbelievable, but right now, I wouldn't doubt an unheard of surge. All the rain created a lot of flooding, too, as water tried to flow into a Gulf that was 20 feet or more higher. So there was a lot of water swirling around and colliding. The size of this storm meant that more rain was dumped for longer on the Coast, and I would guess the duration and size of this storm is what made the destruction so extreme. The water flooded for longer than normal.

But I think at the heart of why some didn't evacuate (a lot did) was that this just didn't seem as strong as Camille, so people thought they knew what to expect. There's the issue of the MSM, here, too. No one trusts the MSM. They over-hype everything so dramatically that people always assume they are exagerating. People rely on their own experiences instead. For once Chicken Little was right, and no one believed him.

[redsoxliberal]

15. surges don't weaken in time with winds.

Changes in hurricane conditions tend to go like this:
pressure changes first... winds follow directly or soon after (within a few hours usually...)

surge can be much later.

It was a cat. 5 surge.

[jobycom]

16. That would explain a lot of it

I didn't realize that. I wonder how many people did.

I'm still not sure, though. In Mobile, they were saying that the storm surge was lower than they expected, but the Mobile River flooded, causing the water to crest the levy. I know the Wolf River in Pass Christian flooded, too. So the rivers were definitely flooding. My parents live near the Little Biloxi, and saw it flood, too, 8 miles inland. The only qualified estimate of the surge in Gulport I heard was 22 foot. I heard newscasters and politicians claiming it was over 30, but they were basing this on how high the water got, not on the surge itself. The water is always higher than the actual surge. A true 30 foot surge would mean forty to fifty foot of water in some places. I haven't (yet) heard evidence of that.

But I just don't know. This is Camille-like destruction, and unlike Camille, it's continuous. With Camille, there were places where it was worse than others. With this one, everything was destroyed. I've even seen tsunami pictures that showed less destruction than this.

[gulfcoastliberal]

6. They knew it 'd be bad but the lore of Camille caused many to stay since

they had survived it, a cat 5 direct hit. My grandmother and mom were in Waveland at her house (1 block from the beach) and had all the trees cut down and carted away that they could. Then they drove back to my moms place in FL. Some people think they can ride out hurricanes. Hell, I rode out Ivan in my condo because it is reinforced concrete building with 40 foot deep concrete pilings as a foundation. But if I'd been in a wood-framed house near the water I'd have evacuated. The NE quadrant of the hurricane, especially the intense eyewall winds and storm surge hit Mississippi the hardest.

[Renew Deal]

4. Further down

As a fellow "RUSH" fan I've always rembered your name and run into your posts. If you say it's so - I believe it.

God Bless your friend and his co-heros as they spend long, hot, thirsty, gusome hours rescuing the living and recovering the dead.

God Bless the living.

[Richard Steele]

7. The Freeper's GUESS may be correct, but he's full of sh*t.

IMHO:
He's just some weenie trying to make himself look important
by making a pretty obvious GUESS,
and then dressing it up as "special inside information".

Multiple bodies hanging in trees? How does that happen?
Has it been a common occurrence in any of the
HUNDREDS of fatal Hurricanes/Floods over the centuries?

And what is this "EMERGENCY cell phone" his alleged friend
used to call him? That's a new term to me!

Sadly, his guess of "thousands dead" is probably correct.
But we all knew that already. (if we read the news)

He's full of crap, and he sees this huge tragedy
as a personal OPPRTUNITY...to impress the morans at FR.

Pfft.

[SheilaT]

9. This has the ring of

urban legend. If this were really happening -- thousands of bodies, hanging in the trees, pulling them out 30 at a time -- there'd be some word of this in mainstream media.

Yeah, the death toll is going to rise, and it will be weeks at a minimum before a final count is made -- and even that will probably be something of an estimate in the end -- but I'd take this with a very large grain of salt.

[aquart]

11. Yet we KNOW that Gulfport is gone. GONE.

So was it 100% evacuated?

The way bodies end up in trees...they get washed out of destroyed houses and caught in branches of trees that are still standing. Sometimes they aren't even dead yet. But no one was able to get to them in time.

We DO know that some people WERE rescued after clinging to a tree for hours. During the tsunami, a number of survivors told similar stories.

So bodies in trees after an intense, high storm surge? Believable.

I wonder if Bush will stop saying 9/11 every two minutes now? Although 8/29 doesn't really have the same resonance.

The night of the tsunami, I remember going to sleep after seeing the initial CNN crawl speaking of maybe a few hundred dead. When I woke up, I asked about the body count and nobody knew what I was talking about. It was hours before numbers started coming out and even then they were unrealistically low.

I've been waiting for someone to get real about the death toll for Katrina.

It would help to remember that freepers are as vicious about phony info from members as we are. We may differ about the definition of "phony."

[applegrove]

10. Gosh no! Please let this be Freeper bullshit trying to lower our

expectations.

[OrlandoGator]

12. I'm reading that rescue boats in NO are pushing bodies aside.

I'm certain the death toll from this storm will be in the thousands.

[Tyranny_R_US]

14. I have a feeling he's going to be asking for paypal donations next .

:rofl:

[Tinoire]

17. How devastating/ Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors

I have no problems with his report, Heart-breaking.

Aug 31, 1:21 AM EDT

Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors

By BRETT MARTEL
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city.

Two levees broke and sent water coursing into the streets of the Big Easy a full day after New Orleans appeared to have escaped widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 80 percent of the below-sea-level city was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes swamped.

"The situation is untenable," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "It's just heartbreaking."


(snip)

After touring the destruction by air, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said it is not of case of homes being severely damaged, "they're simply not there. ... I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.

"We're not even dealing with dead bodies," Nagin said. "They're just pushing them on the side."

(snip)
The dome, which became a shelter of last resort for some 20,000 people, is currently without electricity and has no air conditioning. Broken toilets have also made for extremely unsanitary conditions, Blanco said.

"Conditions are degenerating rapidly," she said. "It's a very, very desperate situation."

(snip)

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANE_KATRINA?SITE=RIWAR&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&SECTION=HOME

Long story but worth a read.

[aquart]

18. "There are bodies everywhere" in Bay St. Louis.

ABC News Special Report at the end of All My Children THIS AFTERNOON.

I'm watching my soap tape and I just saw it.

[Historic NY]

19. One of the County Coroners said they were looking for the

living now as a priority rather than the dead. I expect to see Mass Causality support teams with reefers there in the next several days.