Search Michoud for bodies, city told: Katrina victims may remain, coroner says

[pitohui]

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1163660702242390.xml&coll=1

The Michoud area of eastern New Orleans has never been searched for bodies since Hurricane Katrina and should be investigated as soon as possible, Coroner Frank Minyard told the City Council on Wednesday.

Minyard said he does not want a repetition in New Orleans of what happened last month in New York, where the bones of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were pulled out of a manhole near the World Trade Center that apparently had never been searched....

In May, the state Department of Health and Hospitals set Louisiana's Katrina death toll at 1,577, most of them in New Orleans.

i'll post a new link when they attach their "perma link," this is the location for current news items

i have emphasized the official state katrina death toll, because i have repeatedly seen national media cite a much lower death toll for louisiana, closer to 1,200-1,300 people, i think all who died in the tragedy need to be counted and accounted for

michoud is sort of a swampy/industrial area of new orleans east

[Nite Owl]

1. Damn, never been searched?

I hope the dems do a though investigation of what happeded in NOLA. This WH doesn't care one bit for Americans, people mean nothing to them.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Never. Been. Searched?! And Pubs wonder why Dems got elected.

[pitohui]

3. so say the coroner and i see no reason to disbelieve him

bodies were dumped in that area from time to time since the 70s at least, wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that bodies washed out there by storm surge would not yet have been discovered if not searched for

there are quite a few gators being seen in that area, now, don't get me wrong, i do not accuse our louisiana alligators of attacking living people, there is no evidence of that, but it is not impossible that a body washed out to that area of the swamp would then quickly be reduced to skeleton if not searched for in a few week's time

so a search could be quite challenging and then identifying the remains will also be challenging and it won't get any easier if time goes by

we have a hanged body in st. tammany parish from before the storm of an unknown man, that they have just now managed to reconstruct a possible face, as in they announced the reconstruction of the skeleton's face this past week, it is not known if this person was a suicide or a murder, it's going to be tough to reach any conclusion

who knows how many more may be out there in the various parishes, but certainly the michoud area is one that can easily harbor secrets

[musette_sf]

4. i thought about this while listening to the news this AM

when they were reporting the death toll of the tornado in NC, and of all the search and rescue personnel looking for victims and survivors.

Granted, Katrina was much huger in total devastation than the tornado. But it kind of chapped me to think about the total LACK of search and rescue in NO. All they ever had in mind was recovering a far lower number of bodies than the original estimate of possible dead. And ppl who WERE survivors, who hung on for days, were never found till it was too late. But the folks in NC have gotten snappy search and rescue help pronto.

Not trying to diminish the tragedy of a tornado. But I can't help thinking about a comparison with NO, and how we may never know the true number of casualties. I know Michoud and I am not surprised to hear this.

:mad:

[aquart]

6. Is the NC help local, state, or federal?

I'm betting it's mostly local with some state help. Because the infrastructure of the state is still intact, as happened in New York. With the never-to-be-forgotten help of civilians from across the country, we damn well dug ourselves out.

But New Orleans was devastated and evacuated. It didn't have a local structure or population left that could handle the enormity of the task. The state couldn't...weren't the National Guard in Iraq? And the federal government dropped the ball entirely (may they rot in eternal hell when they're dead, and itch in every orifice while living).

I don't think the feds love NC best. I'm pretty sure BushCo is willing to leave any and all of us to die in a crisis. But NC wasn't destroyed like Louisiana. It has resources of its own still able to help its own.

(And I'm shooting my mouth off with absolutely no knowledge of what's happening on the ground there. But I suspect you'll find it's true.)

[musette_sf]

12. first I heard in the news report was Red Cross

the same Red Cross that the Bu$hCo feds wouldn't allow into New Orleans.

http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html

[RC]

5. The way the bu$h administration treated New Orleans was/is

a Crime Against Humanity. Not all the bad stuff happened in Iraq & Afghanistan.

[aquart]

8. Americans begging for water on the streets of an American city.

Never forget. Never forgive.

[earth mom]

9. I agree with you both...the aftermath of Katrina was genocide...

NEVER EVER FORGET!

That they haven't searched thoroughly for bodies just exposes it all the more! :grr:

[lovuian]

7. Me thinks they should have searched

sooner than this

[MadMaddie]

10. One of the fellows I work with was with the Nationonal Guard in

NO and he said there were a lot of murders, and the Guard was policing the police it was that bad....

[OneBlueSky]

11. the thing about Katrina that most infuriated me was the failure . . .

to search EVERY single attic in the New Orleans within days of the storm . . . there should have been National Guardsmen, cops, park rangers, volunteers, and anyone else who could handle a power saw cutting into each and every roof to search for survivors . . .

I can't imagine how many died of of drowning or suffocation because of the government's unwillingness to do this . . . if it had been a wealthy white city, you can bet that no home or attic would have been left unsearched . . .

[DemBones DemBones]

13. The response to Hurricane Katrina certainly was

different from the response to 9/11 and there's NO excuse for that.