Does anyone know how to read the info. Search & Rescue put on houses?

[lindisfarne]

They just showed on TV news one of the X's Search & Rescue painted on a house. In the bottom quadrant, it said: 8D, and below that, 0L.

What does that mean?

[AllyCat]

1. I would assume 8 dead, 0 living

but I am only guessing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. the codes mean unit that searched

and whether they found a body or not

They change a tad from disaster from disaster.

My favorite was the X, with a 1 for body found and 0 for no body found... simple and to the point... the one was followed by a tack and actual numbers

In this case 8 dead, and 0 living is a good guess... how could I have missed it...

[texpatriot2004]

3. I thought they said that the

# to the left of the X is the number of rooms searched
# to the right is the number of people dead

[ecoflame]

6. I don't know if the # of rooms would be listed

I found this:

The members of Alabama Task Force 1 marked their tracks with orange spray paint, using the same basic code as other search and rescue teams.

An X on a structure indicates it has been searched. Around the X, the team noted the time and date of the search, the task force name and whether any hazards were found. Below the X they put the most important piece of information: a number indicating how many victims had been discovered. Sunday, the Mobile crew wrote zeros.

Here's the link
It's on the last page or almost to the end of the article.

[ecoflame]

4. Here...

In the top of the X = the date

On the left of the X = the searching agency

On the right = list of hazards {dogs, gas, electrical, etc.}

On the bottom = body counts, dead and alive: 0-D, 0-L.

[lindisfarne]

5. Wow. I was afraid that was what it meant. It drew my attention so much

that I didn't even pay attention to what else was in the various quadrants.

That means 1 house, 8 dead. How horrible.

Edit to add: The news station didn't realize what they were showing, or at least they didn't mention it. I'm trying to figure out which station I saw it on; I always keep switching stations so I'm not sure. It was a local interest story about a fire fighter from here, but I'll bet the footage was on a national distribution. I think it was either NBC or CBS. Couldn't have been ABC.