Grim Map Details Toll In 9th Ward and Beyond: Katrina Deadly in (all N.O.)

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Grim Map Details Toll In 9th Ward and Beyond
Katrina Proved Deadly in Every Section of New Orleans

By Ceci Connolly and Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page A14


NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 22 -- Nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina savaged this city, demographers have come to a chilling conclusion: No part of New Orleans was untouched by death. Bodies have been found in every neighborhood in the city, from the pitiably engulfed Lower Ninth Ward to the nouveau riche mansions in Lakeview, from the sodden neighborhoods along the city's Industrial Canal to the elegant Garden District.

The mapping by researchers at Louisiana State University, using preliminary data from the state's temporary morgue in a warehouse 40 miles north of here, gives the first look at the still opaque matter of where people died during Katrina. Information about the dead has only begun to trickle out, delayed by the massive challenges of identifying decayed bodies, by complications related to notifying scattered relatives and by too few forensic experts to perform autopsies.

The city's two worst-hit neighborhoods, the data show, were the Lower Ninth Ward, the predominantly black, working-class community east of the French Quarter, and Gentilly, a fast-gentrifying area where homeownership rates among middle-class blacks had been rising before the storm. Each neighborhood accounted for 31 to 75 deaths, according to the mapping data, which assigned a range of deaths for each region of the city, rather than an exact figure.

More surprising were the high death figures in upscale neighborhoods once considered less vulnerable to flooding deaths because residents had the means to escape, particularly along Lake Pontchartrain in Lakeview, a predominantly white neighborhood where 21 to 30 bodies were recovered on streets where homes routinely sell for $1 million. Nearly all of Lakeview is uninhabitable, and several thousand residents, most relocated to neighboring cities or states, gathered Saturday in a church parking lot to seek answers about a recovery process expected to take years....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102201191.html

[Lancer]

1. Amazing panoramas

and all of it is heartbreaking. I don't see how these smaller towns will ever come back.

[leesa]

2. But where are all the missing people? When do they get added in?

[pitohui]

5. they don't

from the article cited in my previous post:

Bayard, who works closely with the contract firm Kenyon International, said bodies found after the storm typically were in an advanced stage of decomposition, in some cases no more than skeletal remains.

He also noted that the fate of some victims may never be known because they floated away with the tide.

"There's a lot of bodies that went out with the current that we'll never find," he said.

you can't count bodies you can't find, it is going to be up to the families to pursue this if an individual is missing for a substantial quantity of time, some bodies will never be found, perhaps many, not just the current but also the fires, i imagine families are going to have to pursue legal alternatives for having a missing person declared dead after so many months or more likely years

i would not expect to have a full accounting of the dead for many yrs because of this

[mom cat]

7. Just exactly which current was supposed to have swept NOLA people

away? New Orleans is in a Bowl. The bowl did not fill and overflow. The bodies could not have been swept away in New Orleans. in other areas this makes sence, but not NOLA.
It has been almost two months and there is still no good account of the dead and the missing.

[pitohui]

3. much more indepth story on nola.com called where they died

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/113005097377980.xml

at least while the link lasts

Although Hurricane Katrina's deaths are widely believed to have been concentrated in the Lower 9th Ward and eastern New Orleans, new estimates show large numbers of bodies were found in a swath from the Industrial Canal to the 17th Street Canal.

And more than a few people died in Mid-City, Central City and Uptown.

The new report, posted by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals on a Web site Friday night, shows that the largest numbers of bodies were found in ZIP codes 70117, covering the Lower 9th Ward and some neighborhoods to the east bordering St. Claude Avenue, and 70122, including Gentilly and other neighborhoods between Old Gentilly Road and the Lakefront.

my two older friends who died in their attic died in gentilly, 70122, no real mystery why they didn't evacuate when their son came to pick them up, "it didn't flood during betsy"

the nola.com article shows that we lost a disproportionate # of elders, partly because elders are more susceptible to affects of stress from evacuation & so choose not evacuate even when they have transport if they think they have a safe location, they are also more susceptible to heat stroke, dehydration, etc in the aftermath of the storm if trapped in houses w. no power

i've been saying for weeks on this site that gentilly & lakeview were v. hard hit, not just 9th ward, hope it is not rude to say i told you so...but i told you so

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thanks, pitohui!

[rodeodance]

6. maps may provide visual about which areas will or will not be rebuilt.

.The map is more than an exercise in accounting. Once full statistics are complied, community activists believe the figures could play a significant role in discussions about which neighborhoods are rebuilt -- and which are not -- as well as figure into the calculations being made by displaced residents about whether to return.

Jamie Blackman, a Lower Ninth Ward activist, said anxiety is growing as residents learn more about the number of deaths in her neighborhood. "People are fearful," she said Saturday. "There will be people who say, 'I won't come back. I don't trust the locals, I don't trust the state, I don't trust the federal government.' " The sense of unease, she said, is compounded by a lack of information -- about both the dead, many of whom are yet to be identified, and about the living, out of touch with friends and relatives back home after fleeing to evacuation centers around the country. Blackman has been trying, with no success, to find into which of those categories her childhood friend Helen Tobias fits. "I'm not getting enough answers," she said. "I'm sick about it."

[rainbow4321]

8. "Removed from the list because the deaths were not storm related"

Statements like this make me wonder if we will ever know the real death toll...ok, so maybe they didn't die as a direct result of the storm but did they die in the circumstances/environment left behind? Or did they die because of the crappy response/rescue time? I know one article has said that there were 50 evacuees in TX who died and "natural causes" was listed as cause of death.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_DEATHS?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-10-23-17-36-16

About 60 percent of the nearly 500 victims identified so far were age 61 or older, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported. "The elderly were much more likely to be in hospitals and nursing homes as well as possibly homebound and not able to access transportation in order to evacuate from the storm," said agency spokesman Bob Johannessen.

More than 215 bodies out of 1,048 recovered statewide were found in or around hospitals and nursing homes, according the state. Two nursing home operators have been charged with negligent homicide in 34 deaths at one facility, and others are under investigation.


Forty-two percent of the identified victims were black, 37 percent white and 3 percent Hispanic, the report said. The remaining 18 percent weren't identified by race or ethnicity.

On Friday, officials said three more bodies had been recovered, but eight others were removed from the list because the deaths were not storm related.

[markus]

9. That is so fucking wrong

So, if you died of a heart attack or a stroke or complications of diabetes or just of heat prostration while waiting to be rescued you are not among the storm dead? Goddamn Minyard should not stand for this shit.

[spacelady]

10. My question is why are death tolls from tsunamis & massive earthquakes

seem to be so immediate & quickly compiled in order to estimate the amount of need & recovery response? But in the US with all of our technology, expertise, & people wanting to help, it seems we are basically clueles. WHY!!?