What's not being said: People are DYING

[linazelle]

All the evacuees, refugees, looters...yadda yadda are important. But the thing that is not being mentioned (along with the neglect to fund the levee project) is that people are dying in droves because of this catastrophe.

It'll be interesting to see if we get a real true body count. I suspect we won't.

[HEyHEY]

1. While I agree with the dying part

You'll get a real body count... it'll come from the state/coroner's office.

[ewoden]

5. Now I'm no fan of the adminsitration but. . .

There is no electricity. No referigeration. Heck there is precious little solid dry ground right now. Setting up morgues is a lower priority than mob control and rescue. This is a near biblical (if I can be so hyperbolic) event. You can only fly so many copeters over a big city and aerially extract folks form hacked open rooftops. If some of those news copters would fly higher caps instead of in the weeds, rescues could proceed more quickly. Also remember the causeways are down, will be for quite some time (probably for a year) that hampers avenues of approach for heavy equipment.

Now there have been a lot of mistakes in LA regardng flood hazard, but they began way way back when the Army Corp, maritime authorities ad and Coast guard embarked on river channeliztion Also problems arose when energy companys, FERC and the corps cut canals for exploration. This has been decades in the making.

It will be a test of the organizational abilities of the administration to tackle this disaster, and like you, I expect them to drag their feet and offer highly politicized meager responses.

[linazelle]

7. I agree. They will drag their feet while bodies decompose

Then the body count might be a bit more palatable. :sarcasm:

[Erika]

2. Agreed

The bodies are not even being counted. There has been no help for the infants, the sickly, or the elderly. No food, no water, no medical treatment. Bush has turned this into a third world country.

The dead are being tossed aside for a count at a later date. No care, no consideration.

[Horse with no Name]

3. Not only that

In most disasters, there are temporary morgues set up for the bodies.
Here, they are just throwing them back in the water.
I guess they will count the ones that aren't eaten by the rats and gators.

[Erika]

4. I'm sick

Whatever happened to my country who cared about its citizens?

[Garbo 2004]

6. What likely won't be known, especially in NO, is how many people

survived the hurricane and storm surge but died due to subsequent flooding, exposure, lack of medical care, water.

[linazelle]

8. There was no real hurricane damage in NOLA. The deaths

there will be attributable to the levee break. As for separating the counts, I know they will try to say that a certain number drowned from the floods vs. died from the loss of electricity, food, and spreading scourge--to keep the real numbers down.

[delen]

9. Just dawned

* and friends are treating the people left in NO the same way they treat certain other civilians overseas. No body count, no way of knowing how many dead. Earlier Tuesday I saw a video clip on CNN.com were people were rescued while they were surrounded by alligators, one of the women said "they were just circling waiting for us to die", or words to that effect. This sounds ghoulish but that quote means bodies are probably already disappearing.

[demobabe]

10. It suits * to let these people die

They vote for democrats in nola. :(

[linazelle]

13. Horrendous. nt

[OneBlueSky]

11. attics are becoming coffins . . .

people who have been trapped in their attics are dying either from drowning (when the water reaches above their roof levels) or from suffocation . . . they're going to finding dead bodies in attics for weeks . . .

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. When the levee broke

and the water poured in I was horrified because I knew at that moment so many people would be dying.

[linazelle]

14. kick