New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying

[MellowOne]

New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying

Saturday, September 3, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - Thousands more bedraggled refugees were bused and airlifted to salvation Saturday, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care.

No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

And the dying goes on - at the convention center and an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday that she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Touring the airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said "a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day."

Most were those too sick or weak to survive. But not all.

more....

http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=news&referrer=welcome&id=20050903/43191fc0_3ca6_15526200509031058344040

[patrice]

1. So, do you think there will be "wrongfull death" suits?

Criminal or civil charges?

I mean, when I imagine what would have happened to my frail 86-yr-old mother-in-law, for instance, had she survived the storm, but was left without water . . . . Well, she would have died and I'd be wanting Justice for her, because they could have brought water at the very least, and they didn't do it.