So what is the actual death toll in New Orleans?

[peabody71]

I've been discussing this with a few folks and everbody seems to have a difeerent opinion.
Is there an actual number?

[Why Syzygy]

1. You're assuming

our government actually knows how to count the dead.

They don't seem to have that capability. Dubya has 10 fingers and only knows how to use one.

[all.of.me]

12. for picking his nose or his butt?

[Massacure]

23. I always thought he used it for the one finger salute...

Especially when confronting the middle and lower classes.

[Why Syzygy]

25. Bingo! nt

[0007]

33. For flipping off the good folks.....

[nyhuskyfan]

2. Not yet. Not for a while.

There was one report that it would be much lower than expected. Then another report (maybe on a blog) that they were going into the hardest hit area and finding bodies by the dozen.

I imagine the official number will be around 2000 when it is all said and done. They'll want to keep it lower than 9/11. They may even use pre-1860 math and say that each African-American counts for 3/5 of one death.

[bryant69]

3. There won't be an actual number for a while I'd guess

I think we are in a little bit of a sea-saw mode right now. The Mayor of New Orleans (or maybe the governor), claimed 10,000. Right now they are saying under a thousand maybe ? 451 is a number I here thrown around. But that seems far too low - so it could jump back up.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Quakerfriend]

4. Several nights ago,

A guy, who claimed to be a guard at the gates of one of the facilities that claims bodies posted that he had counted 1000+ bodies come in, in one day.

[nyhuskyfan]

5. They are only counting "confirmed deaths"

As in bodies found and identified. That number keeps going up a little at a time.

I hope it legitimately stays low. The body count doesn't have any effect on the ineptness of the federal response. That was out there for all to see as people waited for days to receive any help.

[lonestarnot]

6. They keep showing hundreds of missing children on CNN.... are these

kids part of the count or are they just missing in another state with god only knows who?

[pitohui]

32. these kids are not part of the count

only CONFIRMED dead are being counted at this time

missing children swept away are not going to be counted for a v. v. long time if at all


a few kids have been found at shelters distant from their parents or guardians

so not all missing are dead, altho the reality is that most of them prob. are

we're hearing of grown women swept out of their husband's arms, how much easier for water to sweep away an infant who can't clutch on

[unrepuke]

7. Whatever they tell us, multiply by 10. They do NOT want it to

outrank 9-11, but I bet it does.


By a LOT.

[WiseButAngrySara]

15. I bet it ouranks 9/11 and outranks Iraq War military deaths...n/t

[Wizard777]

8. They are saying to expect it to be under 2,000.

But they didn't say how they came to that conclusion. Sounds to me like someone has set a limit. Like they are going to try to make the facts fit their acceptable figures. Like they are going to run with this. It's ONLY 1,900 people. Bush kills more people than that just getting out of bed in the morning. So this is no big deal. Can we just move a long to the next Bush slow motion train wreck. Oh yeah and it's been decided that the Casulaties on that will 900. So hey look, Bush is killing less people with each new Catasrophic Success.

[nonconformist]

17. Bush does love his "metrics", I agree there is a set limit. nt

[Seabiscuit]

9. Take the fed's number and multiply it by 20.

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. The process of calculating...

...the total has been outsourced to Diebold.

The death toll is 82.

[Botany]

11. Sad Math

500,000 people in NO
80% evacuated
gives 100,000 left in NO
total # superdome and convention center roughly 35,000
that gives 65,000 left
USGC airlifted out 6,500
that gives 48,500 left

how many of that 48,500 rode out the storm in their homes?
how many drowned, how many died to violence, how many stayed
in dryer parts of town, how many died on bridges, how many died
to lack of food & water, how many were picked up by boats, how many
died because of medical conditions that were not treated, and how
can we trust the #s from FEMA?

[Patchuli]

13. You are so right

:cry:

[Raksha]

28. There were approximately 10,000 holdouts in New Orleans last week...

...people who refused to leave their homes for whatever reason, when they were still talking about forced evacuations. So that would have been the lowest number for the population. Now people are beginning to trickle back into the drier parts of town, but we can subtract that 10,000 from your 48,500 and it leaves the possibility of up to 38,500 dead.

They are going to try to keep the death toll only to people who died as a direct result of Hurricane Katrina or by drowning--and then lie about that. What I want to know is how many died of NEGLECT in the aftermath--i.e. dehydration, lack of medical care, etc. And that's exactly what they are going to try to hide from us.

[Imagevision]

14. Fema didn't begin a systamatic block by block search until yesterday

So far I've read 579 dead without all the bodies being picked up from the streets-water yet to 786 - waiting the outcome of the block by block search is all we can do, those living closest to where the levee roke suffered the worst because the water rose so quickly.

[Dakini23]

16. body count?

I was working a trade show last week in Vegas and talked to a guy that approached my booth. We got to talking about the hurricane. He was from Texas and knew some people that had been in New Orleans and heard that people were told to go to a middle school to wait out the storm. That school collapsed killing 100's of people. The media hasn't reported it. I don't know if this happened or if it is just a rumor, but the guy didn't seem like the type to lie about something like this and was very upset when he was telling me about it.
Did anybody hear anything about this?
I have a feeling the media isn't telling us the truth about how many people were killed. We might never know.

[pitohui]

34. was it haynes middle school in lakeview?

i hope it is just a rumor

time will tell

this is a well-to-do area, they won't be able to cover this up indefinitely if it is true

[rainbow4321]

18. They are hiding some of the dead with "natural causes"...

in TX 50 evacuees have died after their arrival..all listed as dying from "natural causes". They just kinda fucking leave out:
1> no access to their medicines for a week
2> no food/water for a week
3> shoved onto an overcrowded, hot bus for hours and hours

Details, details...who needs 'em, right chimpass??


Also, an elderly woman died in Oklahoma from a blood clot..believed to be gotten b/c she had a 30 hr bus ride after leaving NO and being refused entry into the Astrodome...she then had to take the bus to an Oklahoma shelter.

If there is anyone in chimp's regime keeping track of these deaths, you know they are under strict orders to shred/burn any info that they gather.

I get really pissed when the MSM equate the death toll with bodies found..they need to specify x numbers of bodies have been found, but since we don't know how many evacuees have died, there is no official "death toll" and there NEVER WILL BE (decomposition, wildlife eating the bodies, body parts flushed thru the large pipes out to the river/gulf, evacuees who died elsewhere)

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Somebody needs to set up a web site to track these deaths.

Similar to icasualties or Iraq body count. Somebody needs to maintain an independent, comprehensive, publicly accessable record of all Katrina related fatalities whether direct or indirect.

I don't expect the government to ever release any sort of accurate figures, and I expect them to parse out the "indirect" deaths to artificially lower the figures.

[rainbow4321]

22. The evacuees are spread so, so far apart (Puerto Rico to California)

I only learned of the Oklahoma death because I have relatives up there and I look thru the Tulsa news websites. The article was really about TWO evacuees that died. The woman had no family so the town adopted her and gave her a funeral.

Unless the local media outlets report the post-evacuation deaths, we will never hear about them. People are going to have to watch/read their local news for any kind of list to be put together...then the articles/names could be added to a single website, recognizing those people that died after they evaucated.


http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=90058

58-year-old woman spent 30 agonizing hours on a bus to arrive at Camp Gruber in critical condition. She was taken to the hospital, but died a short time later. With her body hundreds of miles from home and her family also displaced by the hurricane, a Tulsa church took her in to give her a proper funeral Monday morning.

A Red Cross volunteer heard the tragic story and decided to do something about it. She helped organize a funeral service for Khaton in Tulsa. Red Cross volunteer Deborah Jones: "I just felt that had that been me or my family or even someone I knew I would want someone to be shown the respect and dignity that every human being deserves."

58-year-old Judy Khaton survived Hurricane Katrina and several days at the Superdome in New Orleans, only to be turned away at the Astrodome in Houston. She was on a bus for 30 hours, which doctors say could have caused the blood clot in her leg that eventually killed her.


The Red Cross says another evacuee staying at Camp Gruber died last week. They say the 68-year-old man had a pre-existing heart condition.

[Crunchy Frog]

29. Some sort of central clearing house where all local reports

can be posted and independent confirmation made. I know that they do this on icasualties. They have people scouring news reports from all over the country, and if they find a confirmed fatality that lacks a CENTCOM report, they inquire about it. I think they may have played a role in keeping the DOD somewhat more honest than they might otherwise have wanted to be, just by having them know that people were watching.

I envision something similar for Katrina deaths, informing and involving as many survivors as possible from all over the country. Also bringing in eyewitness reports that contradict the official line, especially if there can be things like photographic verification. They seem to be doing something similar with respect to missing persons sites, helping people to find each other. This shouldn't be too different in terms of logistics.

This is what citizen journalism should be about. Taking over where the MSM can't or won't do their job, and holding the government's feet to the fire to try to keep them as honest as possible.

I'm just brainstorming here, but it should be possible to do something along these lines.

[Imagevision]

20. How will we ever know with Rove in charge - this is pathetic...!

[rainbow4321]

24. Hospitals not required to report "natural causes" deaths to med examiners

Just re-read the article I had seen...looks like the "natural causes" will be how they get out of reporting a REAL death toll...


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3352879

At least 30 New Orleans-area residents have died in Harris County while 11 were confirmed dead in Dallas County since evacuating their Hurricane Katrina-ravaged city, medical examiners reported this week.

Two of them, including a 25-year-old man, apparently committed suicide. Another was reported to be a dead fetus.

Twenty-seven were either elderly or had extensive health problems and died of natural causes at local hospitals, said Beverly Begay, chief forensic investigator for the Harris County medical examiner's office. "We think most of these people had existing conditions," Begay said. "Stress (from the storm and evacuation) may have exacerbated their conditions."

Begay said the number of dead in Houston could be higher because not all deaths at local hospitals are required to be reported to the medical examiner if they resulted from natural causes.

[Why Syzygy]

26. "Natural Causes"

Can we get an act of gawed or something to impeach this monkey?

This is so sad. Gwb is truly a killing machine. "War President", as he likes to put it.

Take your war some place else! :cry:

[pitohui]

35. yes, natural causes

my friend who died has not been included, altho he was not ill & the natural cause is pretty unclear to me

he died of stress caused by evacuating, i'd call that storm-related

[SoCalDem]

21. Probably will never know for sure..

The people who would be the ones to know which family members "vanished" are scattered all over the country, and corporate media will lose interest soon..

I doubt they will send reporters all over the country tracking down survivors //to ask them who's missing?

the convenient way that families were split up and moved away from each other leads me to believe that the government will be able to spin "absences" as people who for whatever reason, "don't want to be found".:eyes:

[Piperay]

27. If it is under 10,000

I actually heard this Anne Coulter look-a-like on Chris Matthews in so many words say 'it's all good' for their side (that's not an exact quote but she might as well have said it because what she said was close enough and she actually had a smirk on her face!). :wow: :mad: :grr:

[Crunchy Frog]

30. I'm really glad that I rarely watch television.

:puke:

[pitohui]

31. it's early days, nowhere near a final accounting

there is a number that changes hourly & that everyone agrees is nowhere near the true total

40 percent of the city is still flooded & this will be the hardest hit area

some areas most flooded like lakeview & gentilly were not in the flood plain & ppl would not have evac'd because there is no precedent for such flooding of these areas

i used to live in gentilly, huge pop. of retirees who can't drive or who rode out betsy w. no problems, my old 90 something landlord there is listed as missing by his family & he's almost certainly dead, there will be thousands of others