Why we may never know actual Katrina deaths--states get to decide #

[rainbow4321]

Ok, this is just so wrong...each state will get to pick and choose who will be counted as having a Katrina related death. This along with each state having their own "definition" and cut-off dates.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_UNCOUNTED_DEATHS?SITE=NJBRI&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Even as the official toll continues to rise when more bodies are found in once-flooded homes, the real total may never be known. The victims are scattered far and wide, and the connections of their deaths to the storm are not necessarily obvious.

Officially, as of Sunday, the states counted 1,075 deaths in Louisiana, 230 in Mississippi, 14 in Florida and two each in Georgia and Alabama. But the states have different definitions for storm-related deaths.

For example, Louisiana counts evacuee deaths from heart attacks or strokes before Oct. 1 as storm deaths, but Georgia doesn't.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is getting copies of evacuees' death certificates from other states and reviewing them to see which deaths likely were caused or hastened by the Aug. 29 storm.

[sam sarrha]

1. they haven't checked any houses with less than 5 feet of water.. and the

bodies in the water were pumped out into the lake, after being ground up by the pumps