Grim find shows normalcy still eludes New Orleans (2 bodies found)

[fearnobush]

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A backhoe gingerly lifted away twisted lumber, shingles and soiled household items in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward to reveal a decayed body.

Before the remains could be moved onto a stretcher, bagged and loaded into a van, workers found a second corpse in the same small area of the tangle that was once a house and repeated the process as passing cars slowed.

The scene on the 2400 block of Tupelo Street on quiet Sunday morning could have just as easily never played out.

But it did, and two more of the estimated 400 people missing in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina's floods more than half a year ago would be stricken from the list.

A successful Mardi Gras, the return of pro basketball and crescendoing sounds of construction and jazz music lull people into a sense that normalcy is returning after America's worst natural disaster and the botched early response.

The scene on Tupelo Street shows it hasn't.

It began early in this section of the Lower Ninth with two students working to clear the mounds of debris that still litter the ruined neighborhood, officials at the scene said.

Walking by wreckage of a house that had just been bulldozed off the street where it sat since the water subsided, the students noticed a limb in the tangled mess and called police.


<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060319/ts_nm/hurricanes_dead_dc_1;_ylt=Ag3g7VLBDzAy5o8fuiZjkGvuOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw-->

[varkam]

1. It is just the lower ninth, after all...

just a bunch of poor black people lived there. It's not like it's the French Quarter or anything.

:sarcasm:

[MissWaverly]

2. never ask for whom the bell tolls

no man is an island, no man stands alone...never ask for whom the bells tolls, it
tolls for thee

[uppityperson]

3. "Students" there on spring break to help?

RIP whomever you bodies are. Eventually hopefully more closure for someones, if they figure out who they were. Students are getting an education, experiences to take home and raise hell about.

[Theres-a]

4. God help us

I will never forget Vera.Every one of these stories remind me of Vera.

[DeltaLady]

5. My heart aches to read this.

It didn't even make the headlines of the Times Picayune, the "newspaper" of New Orleans. Were they asleep in the newsroom or have they become so complacent that the news editor didn't think this tragedy in their own city warranted the print ink?

I am sickened and saddened. New Orleans is now truly a haunted city. When will it end?

[pitohui]

19. it is in the new orleans paper

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-23/1142874302200720.xml&storylist=louisiana

cataldie doesn't seem to have an i.d. on them yet, i'm sure there will be more information later

[cap]

6. to think that those Christians couldnt give all those folks

a Christian burial.... It makes me sick.

[hedgehog]

7. Hey - a lot of the kids down there now finding the bodies are Christians

Not all of them of course. There are all kinds of groups who organized people to go down and help with the clean-up. Just be careful with your brush. What we have here is a total failure of government to take responsibility after a disaster. We need to get that message out and make George Bush the person to take the full blame.

[wordpix2]

8. 2 found---1798 to go

[OKNancy]

9. kick

[sabra]

10. Remains of two Katrina victims found

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/14144134.htm

Remains of two Katrina victims found

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - Two more bodies have been found in the city's hurricane-devastated Lower Ninth Ward, a coroner said Monday.

About 1,100 deaths have now been blamed on Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Melissa Walker, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said. Katrina's death toll in Mississippi is 231.

The latest bodies were found Sunday in a collapsed house while rubble was being cleared, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, state medical examiner.

Cataldie said he was not sure who found the remains, but he did not believe it was relatives of the victims.

[JuniperLea]

11. There is no excuse for this!

Our President and his henchmen are fecking clueless! How can he retain that smug demeanor when his actions and inactions are so heinously deplorable?

[katinmn]

12. Six months later...unbelievable

x(

[BOSSHOG]

13. And every couple of days

there is an obituary about someone who died on or about 29 August 05 and announcing a memorial ceremony. I drove by the lower ninth ward two weekends ago. It looks like the hurricane happened yesterday.

[uppityperson]

14. Is this the same story?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2176926

[sabra]

16. not sure, could be. If so Mods should combine.

thanks.

[uppityperson]

17. It is just wrong, am glad they are still finding bodies

rather than just bulldozing them. I wonder if the cadaver dogs got to stay in NO, they were leaving last wk due to a screw up in getting them places to stay. Am taking a couple teens down there in a wk, will be interesting to see what is new since 6 months ago, and an education for the guys.

[leftchick]

15. we knew this was going to happen

this is awful. :cry:

[SomewhereOutThere424]

18. And yet most americans will still buy into their fake death count

Made just a few weeks after the initial disaster. I don't think we'll ever truly know how many had to die there...but it's certainly far more than this illusionary number they keep throwing at us. America should show more outrage that so little be done to find the truth on this.

[Marie26]

20. They were bulldozed

instead of buried. How awful & callous.