Thursday, January 19, 2006
Accounting for the Missing
The BBC is reporting that nearly 3,200 people remain missing in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Another 8,000 originally listed as missing have been accounted for. Money quote:
Officials say some may have been traced without being removed from the list, while others may have chosen to vanish.
But several hundred names are causing particular concern to the authorities.
State medical examiner Dr Louis Cataldie said around 400 of the missing reports were from addresses in badly-flooded areas of the city, AP news agency reported. He urged another thorough sweep of the rubble in the area.
The focus is on 400 of the 3,200 remaining. Hmmm. Are the other 2,800 either counting mistakes or disappearances? Seems a high number to me. Some may be discovered to be dead, like Barry Cowsill of the pop group The Cowsills. Some may have died and been swept to sea, never to be recovered. I'm thinking the bulk of the missing merely left New Orleans and have no one to contact.
Call it the bowling alone effect.
Officials say some may have been traced without being removed from the list, while others may have chosen to vanish.
But several hundred names are causing particular concern to the authorities.
State medical examiner Dr Louis Cataldie said around 400 of the missing reports were from addresses in badly-flooded areas of the city, AP news agency reported. He urged another thorough sweep of the rubble in the area.
The focus is on 400 of the 3,200 remaining. Hmmm. Are the other 2,800 either counting mistakes or disappearances? Seems a high number to me. Some may be discovered to be dead, like Barry Cowsill of the pop group The Cowsills. Some may have died and been swept to sea, never to be recovered. I'm thinking the bulk of the missing merely left New Orleans and have no one to contact.
Call it the bowling alone effect.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:37 AM 
