The worst is yet to come - Who is dead

[Laura PourMeADrink]

Surviving families are split up and scattered everywhere, between shelters and private homes across the country. The Red Cross is cataloging the living and reuniting living relatives when possible.

But those who have still not been able to find relatives are probably holding on to the hope that they are alive - somewhere. Unfortunately, this is probably a false sense of security. If as many as they predict are dead, the worst is yet to come for these unfortunate survivors of Katrina.

The dead will be x-rayed, tagged, and photographed. There will be no morgue viewings by survivors. So how will people determine if a relative is dead? Will they have to search through a catalog of dead people? How will 10,000 + people in Houston, for instance, do this? The logistics are mind-boggling.

What is known though, is that the concentration of grief
in one building (Houston Astrodome) will be horrific beyond anyone's imagination.

[bryant69]

1. It is complicated

I'd say it can be done - after all it's just a matter of setting up a database on a server and making it easy for all to send information into it and querry it - but since this is Bush's FEMA we are talking about, well, I assume it will be generally mucked up.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. A database of dead people's pictures? Yikes. Can you even

imagine this? They could sort by men and women and race and maybe approx age or maybe by where the body was found maybe. But otherwise, the don't know much else about the people. Most didn't have IDs on them.

I think with 9-11 they had and did DNA matching. They also knew precisely who might have been in the WTC.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

12. there probably are few pictures left; people got out with the

shirts on their backs and little else

[SmokingJacket]

2. So many people will never, ever know what happened to their

families, to their CHILDREN, and that just kills me. That's the worst...

[whistle]

3. FEMA has that covered, DNA samples from the living who are

....looking for missing relatives. That is the policy they are following right now.

[Land Shark]

5. If there's a murder and an entire Prosecuting Atty office on your side

you can get a DNA test in months or years.

Do you really think FEMA is going to be able to use DNA to any appreciable degree, considering the number dead?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. Are you sure FEMA is taking DNA samples?

[Land Shark]

4. imagine the experience of a single person viewing all morgue photos

now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of others looking, searching....

Considering the coverage on the lost girl in Aruba, there probably won't be any news other than Katrina for about a century.

[ret5hd]

8. what is vitally important...

(and maybe this has already been discussed)

...is a PUBLICALLY OPEN AND SEARCHABLE web-based database of the dead. otherwise, it will be too easy to hide the total number of dead.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. I agree -- There is something VERY fishy about what is happening

in NOLA now. If we had an honest and open government I might not think so, but...

They send all the local law and fire enforcement to Atlanta and Vegas. Then they outlaw the news media and then they decide not to do autopsies? Are they concerned about the horror of it all or are they getting rid of all the witnesses?

[rwork]

9. Remember Cheney saying

We don't do body counts?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

11. no. did he really ? what was the context?

[rwork]

14. Gulf war one

and he will be saying it again.

[grumpy old fart]

13. Another nightmare coming also....2 months from now when thousands of poor

folks are stranded in cities who really don't want them....A few weeks, a month in shelters are bad news....but when it becomes clear that these folks aren't leaving your town...suddenly you have an extra 20,000 poor folks with no place to live, nowhere to go. You didn't like the ghetto your city had, now it's doubled in size overnight.....gonna get bad....

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. You are right. I also worried too when I heard that some of the

people in shelters were dying of bacterial infections. That will certainly add to their persona non gratis image.

I wondered too about the whole financial aspect. I would appoint someone to oversee this immediately, remembering the problems in NYC.
How is money equitably distributed. How does insurance factor in? Who gets what. It would be a mind-boggling assignment. I heard a "faith-based" leader last night saying in essence, Hey we want to help - but we want a piece of the money pie too.