Couple, 97 and 89, are found dead in their Gentilly home (Katrina victims)

[ohio_liberal]

It's now December and people are still finding loved ones dead in their homes in the aftermath of Katrina. There was another elderly man found on Sunday (near the bottom of the article is info about him).


The bodies of a 97-year-old man and his 89-year-old wife were found inside their Gentilly home by a former caretaker who fled the city a day before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

Police said the caretaker, who had cared for the elderly couple before the hurricane, returned to the couple's home in the 4300 block of Annette Street for the first time since late August.

The caretaker entered the home and found the pair dead and called police. Police would not speculate on how long the couple had been dead or the condition of their bodies, but were sure foul play was not a factor in their deaths.

(snip....)

Police continue to field calls from people returning home or to the homes of family members who discover the bodies of loved ones, forgotten or missed by search and rescue or recovery teams.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1133852248209270.xml

Why?? Why were the bodies not found by search and rescue teams?

[Greyhound]

1. I'm so disappointed that this tragedy is falling out of the cycle. It

is shameful that we, as a people, are compliant and simple. Our nation has endured a series of catastrophes and we're barely aware of it. Most of the idiots around here think everything is going along just fine, even though we've got several thousand refugees here.
unfuckingbelievable. :banghead:

[ohio_liberal]

2. I'm disappointed too, my friend

Where is the outrage?

[jilln]

3. I can answer that, somewhat...

Besides the general incompetence and chaos, unless you've seen it you just can't imagine. I went to help with the animal search and rescue and a lot of the places I went into had already been broken into by someone looking for people, but just imagine if you took all the furniture of a house and swirled it around and then put it back in a pile, right on the other side of the door. Now add about 5 inches of mud on everything and a smell so foul you can't breathe, and no light. The ceiling might have caved in and there might be broken glass everywhere. The windows might have bars on them or be so high off the ground they're hard to climb in... in other words, there are so many deterrants to going in there, if the search teams had no reason to suspect someone was in there they might have moved on to more promising houses. It would literally take all day to search one of the houses like some of the ones I saw.

The couple mentioned above, seems like they would have been easy to find... but after what I saw there I wouldn't be surprised if they found hundreds of bodies under the piles of furniture in people's homes.

[ohio_liberal]

4. The door to door search ended Oct 3

It's not like FEMA teams kept looking for bodies. There are hundreds if not thousands of people still not accounted for. And their families are the ones finding skeletons. There's something really wrong with that.

[jilln]

5. Of course there's something wrong with that

One of the teams I was working with found a body. I mean human, because we all found lots of dead animals in crates, etc. I am just trying to explain how incredibly difficult searching is.

[ohio_liberal]

6. Yes, I understand the search was difficult

My point is that they stopped searching altogether.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Yeah, usually it's the smell that tips you off but if it's overwhelmed

by another one that can make it so much harder. :(

[BJW]

8. I'm recc'd every Katrina topic here for Greatest bcz. we need to

keep the focus on this, keep talking about it, instead of the stupid war on war on Xmas.

[donsu]

9. kicking for justice

nt