death toll may already be over 1,000

[JTD]

Death toll in LA now 423.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/13/D8CJJEP83.html

That's a dramatic 1 day rise.

[GalvestonDuck]

:cry: Death toll in LA now 423.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/13/D8CJJEP83.html

That's a dramatic 1 day rise.

First of all - I really despise poorly placed ads near internet news articles like this. (Not your fault, of course, Jason...just shocked when I saw it.)

Second, I think the numbers will grow drastically over the next couple of days now that the water is so much lower, rescuers can get in and out easier, and larger facilities (like the hospital) can be searched.

[Agua]

This offical death toll is severely underreported. In addition to the "direct / indirect" distinciton, it only includes individuals whose bodies have been positively identified.

Three days after the storm hit, rescue workers were quoted as saying that they had ALREADY found over 1,000 in Harrison County alone. A woman I work with who lived in Hancock County returned to the rubble of her home for several days in a row and said regrigerated morgue trucks were coming in and out of a cordoned area south of where her home stood the entire time.

[simplykristi]

The official death toll is 707, according to CNN.

Kristi

[greeng13]

:cry: Death toll in LA now 423.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/13/D8CJJEP83.html

That's a dramatic 1 day rise.

First of all - I really despise poorly placed ads near internet news articles like this. (Not your fault, of course, Jason...just shocked when I saw it.)

Second, I think the numbers will grow drastically over the next couple of days now that the water is so much lower, rescuers can get in and out easier, and larger facilities (like the hospital) can be searched.

i agree (about both points Duck)

i refreshed the website twice....i got a neon sign saying "open" the first time, "metrodate.com" the second, and some ad for "storage garage kits" the third

as the waters recede though and they can actually get into some of these areas i believe they will find more...and diseases as well will take their toll IMO--but probably won't be attributed to katrina

[crazycajuncane]

I talked to a guy in Perdido Key, FL and he told be 70+ people died in one county for Hurricane Ivan. He was one of the first responders after Ivan hit. The true number of deaths for Ivan will never be told to the public, but it exceeded Andrews 26 and Floyds as well.

Funny how the government did such a good job of getting Ivan off our minds so quickly. They can't do this for Katrina.

Let's lay off the conspiracy theories on hurricane deaths. If we can't keep military secrets how do you think that they could coverup 70 deaths with thousands of civilians involved? Let's use our own brains a little instead of propogating rumours.

Maybe it's the way they word "direct deaths". Why would someone on a first responder team make something up like this? Maybe he did make it up or just maybe like he told me they found 70 bodies in one county. Maybe they brought in refrigeration trucks during the night to take the bodies away? Ivan was a monsterous storm. I passed by Orange Beach and straight through where Ivan's eye came onshore 9 months after it happened and the buildings tell stories. It'll take 2 more years before they finish rebuilding all that was lost. Whether or not we ever find out the "true" amount of deaths from this storm remains to be seen.

[GOLDEN_GIRLS]

so, what is the final number? I want to know

[southerngale]

so, what is the final number? I want to know

There isn't one yet. I'm sure you'll find out when everyone else does.

[cancunkid]

so, what is the final number? I want to know

There isn't one yet. I'm sure you'll find out when everyone else does.

I notice on that clickable map of NO that water is down so many places. Anyone want to hazard a guess when there might be a final toll? Has anyone seen anything about where they are currently searching for bodies?

[jpigott]

so, what is the final number? I want to know

There isn't one yet. I'm sure you'll find out when everyone else does.

I notice on that clickable map of NO that water is down so many places. Anyone want to hazard a guess when there might be a final toll? Has anyone seen anything about where they are currently searching for bodies?

yea, its been eerily quiet the past 24 hours with regards to recovery operations

[Derek Ortt]

the official toll as of last night was about 791. Its been going up at a rate of 50-100 per day in Louisiana

[Solaris]

todays report from LA DHH has 579 confirmed dead, +21 vs yesterday.

[Derek Ortt]

CNN said that the toll may reach up to 2,000 in Louisiana

[simplykristi]

I just read in an article on nola.com that the search and recovery teams are just getting into the hardest hit areas of NO. It is surreal that the offical death toll stands at nearly 800 and climbing.

Kristi

[logybogy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/natio ... S2hI/DQ+8g

Officials overseeing the recovery effort in New Orleans are still loath to make any projections about what the final count will be. But there were some tentative indications of the potential scope of the loss of life.

The Find Family National Call Center here, intended primarily for families searching for those they fear are dead, received calls about 4,313 missing people as of Wednesday night. Of those, 642 were people whose families felt strongly that they were alive, and by Thursday night, more than 350 had been reunited with relatives using databases and Web sites, said Heather Murphy, a spokeswoman for the call center. The rest were of "unknown status," she said.

In Harrison County, Miss., a list of missing people taken from the coroner's office, the Red Cross and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children numbered 1,132.

Dr. Frank Minyard, the New Orleans coroner, who is working out of the temporary morgue in St. Gabriel, said, "I think we have a long way to go."

He added, "They have all of those wet areas in the city that they haven't really started yet."

[recmod]

I just had a conversation with my room-mate that left me disturbed and rather discouraged. I think all the media hype of "Tens of thousands " of dead has left many people in a vacuum when it comes to conversations regarding Katrina's death toll. When I mentioned to my room-mate that the official toll was now over 800, she exclaimed..."Wow...that's ALL!!!!!???.. That's Wonderful!!" A statement like that just a few weeks ago would have been unfathomable.

I know the studies of a New Orleans hurricane disaster projected massive death tolls, but I honestly (blindly and ignorantly???) thought that these huge death counts were a thing of the past. We have grown accustomed to the modern hurricane becoming an ever increasing economic burden, but one that has a "relatively" minor death statistic. Take Hurricane Andrew who's direct death toll was something like 26. All four hurricanes last year combined killed a total of just over 120 people (in the USA).

It has come to be expected that, with all the modern technology, we (in America) are able to relatively easily move people out of harms' way when it comes to hurricanes. Katrina's body count (which will almost certainly push between 1500-2000 before all is finished), shows that we are really much more vulnerable than we ever imagined.

Katrina now sits as the 5th deadliest hurricane in US history. Other than the 1928 Okeechobee storm that killed between 1500-3000 (depending on the source quoted), EVERY other storm with a U.S death toll over 1000 occurred from 1900 or earlier. The deadliest "modern era" storm, in my opinion, would be Audrey with estimates up to 500 dead. Others may argue that Camille in 1969 would be the deadliest "Modern Era" storm with 256 dead, since the satellite age was still in its infancy when Audrey struck.

Is it callousness that results in such comments from my room-mate that a death toll of 800 is "good news"?? Rather, I think the saturation media coverage that megaphones every single sound bite from every official (and non-official) of sometimes unsubstantiated "statistics" has created an environment where we have become numb and almost immune to such horrific predictions of death tolls in the "10's of thousands". In this arena, a tally of 800 is almost like a blessing.

I know I have rambled, but I just wanted to convey my sense of sadness about this tragedy that we are at a point where a report of nearly 1,000 lot souls is "Good News".

--Lou

[logybogy]

Body count jumps in hard-hit areas

Flooding likely caught many by surprise

70-year-old man rescued from home

By Michael Perlstein
Staff writer

Tentative optimism that New Orleans' death toll from Hurricane Katrina might be far lower than first projected gave way to somber reality over 36 hours as search and rescue squads turned up bodies by the dozen in the hardest hit areas of the city.


By midafternoon Friday, the black triangles used to designate human remains were multiplying on an emergency command center map. Federal Emergency Management Agency rescue squad liaison Charles Hood said a spike in discoveries Friday started to take an emotional toll on rescue workers.

"Our squad members are getting access to trauma and grief counselors," Hood said. "It's becoming a very difficult task."

The state is in charge of releasing Katrina's official death total, which stood at 579 Friday night. Hood said the periodic reports from his seven 80-person squads indicate the casualty count is going to jump in the coming days, but declined to speculate on what the number would reach. One squad alone located and marked more than a dozen houses containing bodies Friday.

"Parts of the city have become a target-rich environment for human remains," Hood said. "We're just now getting into the areas that experienced the most rapid inundation."

Large chunks of the city, including parts of Gentilly, the Desire-Florida area and Upper 9th Ward, have revealed telltale signs that the two breaches of the London Avenue Canal led to a rapid rush of floodwaters that caught scores of residents off guard. The surprise factor was only worsened by the fact that the fast-rising water, more than 12 feet in spots, came well after the storm had passed.

"Those are areas where the people were probably asleep when the water rushed in," Hood said.

The urban search and rescue squads were bracing for inspections of neighborhoods that experienced rapid inundation, such as the Lower 9th Ward. The inspections are referred to as "secondary searches," in which squad members are breaking into homes to conduct room-to-room searches, Hood said. In some cases, workers have been breaking through roofs and attics before checking off houses as "all clear."

Thursday and Friday's developments were mostly grim, but the discovery of a 70-year-old man, alive and well after being trapped for 17 days, brought cheers from the beleaguered rescue squads. He was the first "live" discovery by the squads in two days, Hood said. The man was found in an area near the University of New Orleans, but other details about the rescue were unavailable late Friday.

"That is really going to help give momentum to everybody," Hood said. "As bad as things are out there, we're still holding out hope that we can find others like him."

[Derek Ortt]

the death toll is rising significantly by each day. It is going to be in the thousands when all is said and done

Dennis has it have hit Key West would have had a similar outcome since nobody heeded the mandatory evacuation order, including the mayor himself

[HurricaneBill]

Latest according to Wikipedia:

857

At least 286 are direct fatalities.

[Derek Ortt]

are there any updates on the official death toll from today?