Is There Some Kind Of News Blackout Re: NOLA Or What

[K8-EEE]

It's odd that I can't find any answers to a simple question: How many people are still officially "missing" from NOLA?

And what are the current body counts, more specifically I'm interested in the body counts at the Convention Center. Whenever I try to look for this information I just keep getting the "fewer than expected" answer from the first few days.

I have a friend who was last seen in CNN footage at the convention center who has not turned up. Where can I ask other people who were at the Convention Center if they saw him or knew what happened to them? There are all sorts of articles about Superdome people and message boards but I can't find anything about getting messages or questions Convention Center evacuees.

It's odd to me that they have just stopped talking about the missing and dead there. Or am I just not finding it?

[SmokingJacket]

1. This has puzzled me too. Where are the lists of names?

I think the problem is there *is no* official list of the missing. There are a bunch of lists that some people have cross-indexed, but still no official list. Or if there is one, I -- who have been trying to track down old friends -- can't find it.

There *must* be a list of the names of the dead, but where is that one too?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Federal Government Incompetence.

[shance]

15. Incompetence implies it is without intention. There is clear intent here.

One or two examples of neglect is one thing.

There are volumes of cases of deliberate stalling and refusal to provide the already present sources of aid.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Yes, refusal to forward aid, but incompetence on the death toll figures.

[nashville_brook]

3. damn good question -- i've wondered this too. there's Petfinder...

why no peoplefinder?

i'm already pre-pissed about not getting a real body count. read this:

Drowning by Numbers
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2005/09/drowning-by-numbers.html

New Orleans is beginning to look like Funeralgate, supersized.

FEMA has relieved volunteers of their emergency mortuary services in Louisiana only, and contracted out to Kenyon, a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International" of Houston, Texas.

Are the alarms sounding yet? LightUpTheDarkness reminds us why they should be:

You may remember Service Corporation International, SCI, as it was part of the case against confirming Alberto Gonzales due to his involvement in the Texas and Florida scandals known as Funeralgate. As we covered back in February, Service Corporation International was "recycling" graves, removing the bodies that were there originally and throwing them in the woods to use the space to house new customers at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida . Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral service company, is headed by Robert Waltrip, a longtime friend and generous financial patron of the Bush family. Eliza May was head of the Texas Funeral Services Commission when it began receiving complaints about unlicensed embalmers, and sued when she was fired. Gonzales kept Bush from testifying in this case and was also under scrutiny when a memo surfaced that was sent to his office when he was Bush’s gubernatorial counsel. The memo suggested possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI and Joeseph Allbaugh, Bush’s former chief of staff in Austin, 2000 presidential campaign manager, who now serves as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The case was suddenly settled in November 2001. The Menorah Gardens case in Florida, involving 72 families, was settled in Oct of 2004.

more at link -- great piece.

[chalky]

13. According to the SFGate, despite CNN suing, they're STILL blocking access

to reporters.

See the link on post #12.

[bonito]

4. that is odd .debkafile has been showing a running count.

[demnan]

7. Now let me get my tin-foil hat

When the Massad knows exactly how many are dead and the FBI does not, something is very, very wrong. :tinfoilhat:

[oasis]

5. Look for non-stop coverage of Arnold Schwartzenegger's re-election bid.

[demnan]

6. A friend of a friend of mine is missing

A woman living alone. She was last contacted on Tuesday (Aug 30) night. She lived in one of the areas that wasn't flooded. When my friend phoned her house two days later, someone else answered the phone.

[papau]

8. Try Daily Kos

http://mrblifil.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/8/1837/41163


on 9/12 he had 794 dead

[K8-EEE]

9. The Transcript On "Greatest" Of Nancy Grace

Was about the most info I've had..

[papau]

11. I just added link to Kos summary count of the dead page

http://mrblifil.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/8/1837/41163

[PATRICK]

10. And compare to the Tsunami

body count which was bungled enough with the stupid presentation of the first low "confirmed" numbers all evidence and common sense set aside. yet the numbers grew rapidly and publicly.

But this is the US which bungled the Tsunami reporting here anyway. The pattern is more important than the facts. There is not a single set of employees and visitors and first responders known to have been trapped in one location. It is a region and city evacuated and its peoples scattered inside and out. This is US journalism which does not even bother to get a handle on casualties in Iraq other than the moment and the obligatory military count. This is feel good US journalism that moves on faster than a speeding hurricane back to its comforting comfort zone. this is a cover administration that likes everything unpleasant totally secret. This is a time of continued incompetence and chaos. There is a pattern, not entirely malicious of preparing people for the worst and then taking rapid comfort in numbers less than the worst case scenario.

Still, compared to other disasters this does seem repressed and mysterious to a suspicious degree.

[chalky]

12. Blackout? YES. CNN sued, but they've STILL blocked access to reporters.

On Saturday, after being challenged in court by CNN, the Bush administration agreed not to prevent the news media from following the effort to recover the bodies of Hurricane Katrina victims.

But on Monday, in the Bywater district, that assurance wasn't being followed. The 82nd Airborne soldier told reporters the Army had a policy that requires media to be 300 meters -- more than three football fields in length -- away from the scene of body recoveries in New Orleans. If reporters wrote stories or took pictures of body recoveries, they would be reported and face consequences, he said, including a loss of access for up-close coverage of certain military operations.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/13/MNG3HEMQHG1.DTL

[nashville_brook]

17. didn't china just open access to death tolls from natural disasters?

this is so freaking horrible.

[Watchmaker]

14. There is clearly some kind of black-out

I have heard that the death toll is based upon only identified bodies. There are apparently thousands of bodies in Mississippi alone and this has been known for weeks now. When a reporter asks a FEMA officer for a death count and he is told "218" for Mississippi but that officer knows fully well that the morgue down the road contains 3,000 unidentified bodies there is a word for that - it's called deception. It's incredible to witness this happening and for the MSM to apparently not realize it. The accounts below seem to support this:


http://www.moberlymonitor.com/articles/2005/09/06/news/news1.txt
Davis said Gator has been busy rescuing as many people as he can; when she spoke to him last, he had taken over 50 people into his home to give them food and shelter. He has pulled almost that many dead bodies out of the water and taken them to I-90, where he told Davis there were about 800 corpses lined up along the road for rescue workers to retrieve.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000069092
But those numbers are considered low by law enforcement and medical rescue squads. One law enforcement officer estimates it is more likely to be between 600 and 800 Bay St.Louis alone. The residents are “in for a shock,” he tells the Washington Post.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1473894/posts?page=2690

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/12575557.htm
With the search-team's tales of horrendous findings and the official death toll not matching up, rumors in this disconnected part of the world seem to be spiraling out of control.

A Florida EMA official, brought in to handle media in Hancock, told the Sun Herald the county would not release "any more numbers" until the coroners complete their collecting process.

Several armed guards stand near the front gate of the old Alcan Cable site in Bay St. Louis, where five, 53-foot, refrigerated tractor-trailers sit behind a chain-linked fence.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1480391/posts?q=1&&page=101#114

a dear friend (who is a doc in Biloxi/Gulf Port)finally called me to let me know that he was alive, said that they had found (I believe it was this morning)a shelter about 1/4 from the beach that housed 800. All 800 were found to have drown. Sad, Sad, Sad. I was relieved to hear his voice, but feel bad for what he has seen. He happened to be in the ER when the hurricane hit. All at the hospital were saved,PTL. He did, however, loose his home and all earthly possessions. He said the AFB is obliterated.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1476540/posts?q=1&&page=51#70
The death toll in Miss is in the thousands. I have now spoken to at-least 4 people who have worked down there during recovery.If you did the math between the 4 of them you would be over 1,500 alone as far as tagging bodies is concerned.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1473894/posts?page=2690#2674
My wife works part-time for an answering company. One of their clients is a funeral home up here in Upstate New York has a couple of its employees down in Biloxi as volunteers. Anyways, one of the employees called in from Biloxi - via the answering service - to let their employer know of their status. She said that they were "processing 300+ bodies per day" in Biloxi alone...

[ClintonTyree]

16. The news is being controlled much better.........

now that the feds are in charge. For a while there it was almost as if we had an unfettered press! Things are slowly getting back to normal in the bush white house, and as soon as they get a grip on the PR disaster, there's that other nagging little emergency they'll have to address; New Orleans.

[Zeebo]

18. Absolutely there is a blackout! It is crystal clear how the coverage...

completely changed when the military really got a foothold in the area.

Look at the posted number of dead on CNN's website. Actually, first you have to find where the numbers are posted on all the major media websites, they are not easily accessible. The death toll in LA was increased by 84 from 9/14 to 9/15. Only 84 new confirmed dead in all of the State of LA for a 24 hour period???? Bullshit! Either they are working at an absolute snails pace, or they are deliberately not giving the American public accurate numbers.