Homeland Security tells Mortician: 'Expect Up to 40,000 Bodies'

[cynatnite]

A co-owner of Shelbyville-based Gowen-Smith Chapel has been deployed to Gulfport, Miss., to help with recovery since Hurricane Katrina, and his business partner here has described the grim task there.

"DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies," Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.

...
"Until they search each and every remaining house and remove all the fallen materials ... they will not know how many people are there," Buckner said.

...
"My personal opinion is they will be recovering bodies for 30 ... to 120 days," Buckner said.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001804.htm

[Drum]

1. good God....speechless! nt

[supernova]

2. Finally! an estimate from somebody in the business

Definitely horrible how many people died. :cry:

Eeep! That's a small town! :cry:

[roguevalley]

3. still too conservative I think. In the whole region, I will be surprised

if it DOESN'T pass 100,000.

[Nikki Stone 1]

7. I agree

Let's hope we get the real numbers.

And that the 40% that support the spawn of Barbara get the real numbers too.

[preciousdove]

9. Census data for that area must be way off. Lots more ppl than enumerated.

[tridim]

4. From "hundreds" to "thousands" to "ten thousand" to "forty thousand"

in about 5 days. Holy crap.. Now we know exactly why BushCo is moving heaven and earth to shift the blame.

[moobu2]

5. They haven’t even started

the search in all the rural poor communities all across Louisiana and Mississippi either.

[MojoXN]

6. My God...

HOW MANY?? TOO MANY!! 40000 in Miss. alone?! This can't be happening. My God... We may have lost as many from Katrina as Japan did from Hiroshima. Oh Lord, why are you punishing us?

[IdaBriggs]

8. Two words -- PRESIDENT BUSH! nt

[jus_the_facts]

10. maybe it's because of the big ol' Pentagram our military headquarters....

...is located...the portal to hell on earth? :tinfoilhat:

[bee]

11. "...this is working out very well for them" barbara bush n/t