What's the number of people reported missing b/c of Katrina?

[liberalpragmatist]

Obviously, such a figure will be MUCH higher than any death toll, but I'm still curious what it is, since if adjusted it might give a better estimate than the current projections.

Some good possible news - on Juan Cole's blog, he reprints an email from David Langness, a social worker with a lot of experience in humanitarian disaster relief. He says he believes the death toll will not exceed 2000.

Still, that seems quite low to me - just logic would seem to indicate that, even if 10,000 is much too high, I still would expect more than 5,000 in New Orleans and perhaps another 1 to 2000 throughout the rest of Mississippi, Lousiana, and Alabama.

[faithfulcitizen]

1. have no clue, but it's a great question-kick

[Liberty Belle]

2. www.satern.org as 55,000 reports of missing.

That's the Salvation Army amateur radio operators network. The number includes some duplicates, ie multiple people looking for the same missing person. Many of those may be just fine, only scattered in shelters or elsewhere around the country.

Still, it's a big discrepancy between that number and the official death toll.

One bright spot: There were 60,000 at first, and 5,000 have been found.

[liberalpragmatist]

3. yeah

I expect a large number are people who just haven't been contacted but are fine - just scattered.

I certainly hope that the death toll doesn't reach 10,000 and many have been saying that it won't - people who are experienced in disaster relief, not just Bushco officials. Certainly it's nowhere near as catastrophic as it would have been had the full force of Katrina hit New Orleans directly and caused a storm surge off of the Mississippi to flood the city - such a break would have poured in from the top down and the death toll would have been catastrophic - upwards of 50,000 to 100,000. The fact that the levees broke a day later and on Lake Pontchartrain meant that the waters rose relatively slowly for many people and they were able to escape, especially b/c by that time it was sunny (but VERY hot).

Still, if there were 50,000 to 100,000 people left in the city (I've heard 250,000 in the metro area), and if most of those people were the poor and elderly who lived in the most vulnerable and quickly-flooded sections of town - well, even if 90% of them escaped, that's still 5 to 10,000 dead. I don't know - I certainly hope not. But I just don't see how you get less than 2000.

Of course, none of this takes into account the many people - particularly the elderly and the sick - who died or will die as a result of disease or lack of access to medicine.