Unbelievable NOLA news

November 16, 2005 4:01 PM

Bodies still being found in NOLAYou know, it's hard to imagine anything worse than coming back to your home in New Orleans and finding it completely destroyed. But, tonight, as you're about to hear, there is something worse, much worse. Dozens of families have returned to what is left of their homes and found, lying amidst the mold and the wreckage, a body, forgotten, abandoned. Maybe it's their mother or their grandmother, sometimes even their missing child. More Here
posted by srboisvert (31 comments total)

Very depressing.
posted by Peter H at 4:04 PM on November 16, 2005

How truly awful.
posted by fenriq at 4:07 PM on November 16, 2005

From the same transcript:

DORNIN: Since November 1, 10 bodies have been found in the ruins of the Ninth Ward. The last area, known as the Lower Ninth, will open to residents December 1. Coroner Frank Minyard worries about what people will find.

(...)

COOPER: One more word on the subject of Katrina. For tonight, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it's going to stop paying for hotel rooms for evacuees on the 1st of December, that means some 53,000 families, most of them in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, they are going to be relocated by then or they'll have to pay the bill themselves.

So some people won't even have had the chance to return home and survey the damage before being kicked to the curb.
posted by chrominance at 4:16 PM on November 16, 2005

I'm pretty sure we will be seeing stories like this for years to come.
posted by chowder at 4:18 PM on November 16, 2005

Body parts were just recently found at ground zero, atop the Deutche Banke building.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:27 PM on November 16, 2005

stickycarpet: link?
posted by keswick at 4:31 PM on November 16, 2005

They have done several thoroughly insane things with regard to the bodies of victims. There was the instruction not to search attics, even though that's the most likely place anyone with any mobility would have ended up; then there was the early call-off of the search mentioned in this article.

I still say that the death toll must be much higher than anyone is letting on and that there must be thousands of bodies in those attics in Lakewood, Gentilly, the 9th ward, and Chalmette where the waters rose high enough to inundate even the attics of houses. There are many, many closed-up houses that have never been searched, many of which have flooded cars sitting in front of them suggesting that the occupants did not leave.

There is no way to convey what it is like to go into one of these flooded areas. Even in the tsunami zone you could at least walk a mile inland and be in an untouched area. Here the devastation goes on for miles and miles, hundreds of square miles of destroyed houses, dead grass, dead trees, and not even the usual urban wildlife like birds and squirrels. There are places where you can walk for ten miles without reaching a place where the flooding was only minor as opposed to devastating.

We are going to be seeing depressing stories like this coming from NOLA for years, I am afraid.
posted by localroger at 4:32 PM on November 16, 2005

the lower 9th ward, perhaps the most devastated area of NOLA, will not open to residents until December.

JACK STEPHENS, SAINT BERNARD PARISH SHERIFF: Well, you know, you just wonder what provoked that decision.

Damn straight. What the fuck?

I heard an equally depressing story this morning on NPR about the recent upswing in New Orleans suicide attempts. I expect it will get much worse before it gets better.
posted by mrgrimm at 4:39 PM on November 16, 2005

Yeah, I agree about the suicide. Enough time has passed that the shock and anger are subsiding, and depression and despair will become the predominant emotions for those who have lost so much.
posted by Miko at 5:01 PM on November 16, 2005

Sure. If weeks later I discovered my missing child was still in my home and dead, I would make mighty efforts to blame someone else.
posted by wrapper at 5:56 PM on November 16, 2005

Body parts were just recently found at ground zero, atop the Deutche Banke building.

keswick: stickycarpet: link?

Human Fragments
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:57 PM on November 16, 2005

this is horrible - but it should have been expected, too. there are a ton of missing people - and their bodies are likely still in or near their homes....
posted by gnutron at 6:12 PM on November 16, 2005

The fragments, fewer than 10 and none measuring more than 2 inches, were turned over to the city's medical examiner's office, where they were being tested yesterday to determine whether they are human remains.

from stickyCarpet's link.

Okay, I find it acceptable that no one noticed those until now. A bloated human corpse in your house is slightly more noticeable than a 2 inch possibly-bone chip.

My "favorite" part:

MINYARD: We have 150 autopsies left to do, all on unidentified people. Hopefully, that -- that will help us identify that person, if we can find a pacemaker or an artificial hip or something. Then we're into DNA.

DORNIN: Susan Eaton (ph) asked if she could send a DNA sample and was told DNA samples were not being accepted. Nearly 80 days after Katrina, not one DNA test has been done.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Now, there's been talk about conflicts among FEMA and the state about contracting a private lab. And then it was too expensive.

But when I spoke to a FEMA spokesperson tonight, they said they -- it is their number one priority to go ahead with the DNA testing of the people who have not yet been identified.
posted by concreteforest at 6:32 PM on November 16, 2005

Can we stop calling it "NOLA" yet?
posted by melt away at 6:50 PM on November 16, 2005

As someone who is working closely with the recovery of bodies from New Orleans, I can tell you that the only upside at this point is that bodies which are found at this point have mostly passed the stage where they are...odiferous. Let me restate that: the smell won't knock you on your ass.

Nature has come and gone by this point and bodies who are recovered are in a state of advanced decomposition. Think leather and mummies.

DNA samples are being taken on every body recovered, and I'm not sure where the information above came from, but they were taking DNA samples from family members, although it is true that tests are not being conducted yet.

It's a long, long process and there will certainly be bodies who are never identified, just as there are many, many bodies who were washed out into the swamps and down the river.

A friend who works with the DMORT office told me that the list of the still missing is over 5000. Many of those are surely somewhere in another state, not knowing that someone is looking for them. And probably many people have just gone "off the grid." But I'm sure the true death toll on this will never be known.
posted by ColdChef at 6:53 PM on November 16, 2005

Can we stop calling it "NOLA" yet?

Heh. I've actually heard a lot of New Orleans people use that phrase. I've never, though, heard anyone from there actually call it "The Big Easy."
posted by ColdChef at 6:55 PM on November 16, 2005

This is exactly how I feel right now(from the article linked above):

But, you know, this is another thing I predicted a month or six weeks ago. When the lights went down and the other stories were hot and people's attention were diverted, that basically, we were going to be neglected here. But I'll tell you what, people are really disillusioned and disappointed by the response to this whole event. We continue to be.
posted by ColdChef at 7:01 PM on November 16, 2005

My favorite part of the article was this:

Had that been a man and a young girl, they would have had him hung already. It is what they ought to be do that skanky thing.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:16 PM on November 16, 2005

Can we stop calling it "NOLA" yet?

I have a friend from New Orleans (her dad actually died there during the disaster) and she and her family always refer to it as NOLA. In fact, the other day she and I were out shopping, and she was wearing a shirt that said "I [heart] NOLA" and several people stopped her throughout the day to ask her where she'd got it -- they were all from New Orleans too, and wanted to get one for themselves. So I guess it really is a hometown nickname.
posted by scody at 7:26 PM on November 16, 2005

When I lived in New Orleans (right up until 10 weeks ago, when Katrina hit), NOLA was the only nickname anyone used for the town in speaking. In writing, sometimes the town would be called The Crescent City. Never The Big Easy, never the City that Care Forgot. Certainly never N'awlins -- you could always tell a tourist because they used that pronouncination.

Anyway -- ugh. What a miserable tale.
posted by maxsparber at 7:55 PM on November 16, 2005

I, for one, have never said NOLA. But I type it all the time (emails, etc.). But even saying NOLA is better than The Big Easy, The Crescent City, New Or-leens or, especially, Nawlins'. I can't stand Nawlins'. Especially when it's written.
posted by brundlefly at 8:35 PM on November 16, 2005

.
posted by ben-o at 9:17 PM on November 16, 2005

"A friend who works with the DMORT office told me that the list of the still missing is over 5000" - well, my ever friendly public radio station is reporting the missing list at 4000+

So, we might assume the real death toll to be 10,000 or so.

( coldchef : ) Have you ever seen the Net reports on the unofficial history of Hurricane Andrew ? I've seen pictures - it hit tract housing neighborhoods like a big piece of industrial pavement flattening equipment, yet the official death toll was 30 or so. Said one woman, "If 30 people died, well they all died on my cul-de-sac"


.

Wh knows.
posted by troutfishing at 9:51 PM on November 16, 2005

Certainly never N'awlins

I've known people born and raised there who said it that way.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:18 AM on November 17, 2005

A Brownie Job Heck Of Doing You're
posted by cavalier at 4:55 AM on November 17, 2005

It is so strange to me that victims of 9/11 are labeled "heros" and their heirs are given a million dollars or more by our government, but vicitms killed in the aftermath of Katrina-- real people who might have had their lives saved if FEMA had gotten their act together--are just bodies in a morgue that our government can't be bothered to spend the price of a DNA test on.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:25 AM on November 17, 2005

Did I hear Randi Rhodes say there are still 5000 missing last night?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:39 AM on November 17, 2005

"Unbelievable NOLA news"??? What naïveté! The area of the flood was far too huge for rescue crews to give any more than a cursory search of houses. That bodies were missed is not only probable but expected.
posted by mischief at 9:34 AM on November 17, 2005

Lakewood, Gentilly, the 9th ward, and Chalmette

for the record it's Lakeview.

cheers
posted by eustatic at 1:35 PM on November 17, 2005

It is so strange to me that victims of 9/11 are labeled "heros" and their heirs are given a million dollars or more by our government, but vicitms killed in the aftermath of Katrina-- real people who might have had their lives saved if FEMA had gotten their act together--are just bodies in a morgue that our government can't be bothered to spend the price of a DNA test on.

Seconded. A month or so after the WTC/Pentagon attack, I was chastised by an acquaintance for comparing it to a natural disaster (meaning we can try to limit the damage, destruction, and some of the root causes of terrorism, but we surely can't eliminate terrorism itself).

He: "I guess you don't understand what just happened. /smirk"

Me: "I guess not. /shrug"

The fact that the WTC victims were compensated by the government was basically to save United and Delta (and the airports whose security failed) from being sued for billions. Just think of it as corporate welfare. In NOLA, there' aren't any corporations to hold financially responsible for the carnage, so the victims have no leverage with the government.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:40 PM on November 17, 2005

Hi. I'm glad y'all are still talking about what happened because I don't really have anyone to to speak with about it. We're relocated in Massachusetts. My friends have all gone back home to New Orleans, but my daughter is in school here now, so we won't be able to return until June. I feel some guilt because I don't intend to stay after that. I intend to come back up here for the following school year and relocate. I lived in New Orleans for 20 years. I'm really from NYC, grew up there, but moved to NOLA in 1985.(Moved from the Rotten Apple to the Big Sleazy, if you want nicknames....no, I'm kidding, they're both good and bad in their own ways.) The Times-Picayune's website: nola.com is not as helpful as I would wish. It's difficult for me to find information...streaming video or pictures of the so-called recovery. I guess it's too soon.
The non-flooded areas have been becoming liveable, according to my friends, but the flooded areas are a really long time away from any true recovery, it seems.
:^(
posted by Today at 11:46 AM on December 11, 2005