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Louisiana Flood Death Toll ‘Unknown,’ ‘Probably Fewer Than Hurricane Katrina’
As reported Monday by this author on Before It’s News, many people remain missing, unaccounted, stranded. It remains unclear, however, how many missing persons are clinging to life in neighborhoods still flooded, according to officials Wednesday. The other news is even more grim: Officials says that rescue workers plan to get to the remaining stranded people in flooded homes over the next two weeks.
READ: Deadly Louisiana Flood Coverup. 16 Startling Truths
“I don’t know that we have a good handle on the number of people who are missing,” Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon, according to the LA Times.
(Feature photo credit: Facebook/Louisiana Flood Rescue)
It is likely that many of the missing are safe and are unable to communicate with their loved ones, Edwards said.
If safe and in a shelter, wouldn’t a person have been able to communicate with loved ones by now, Louisiana Flood Day Five?
How many people were physically unable to survive the type of flood Louisiana residents experienced?
Some people were chased from place to place by water that kept coming.
“Christine McFarland’s eyes grew wide as she told the story of her escape from the flood on Saturday” The Washington Post reports. “That morning, there had been no standing water at her apartment complex in Baton Rouge — just rain that was falling hard but hardly seemed extraordinary. But then the water started rising, fast. Within an hour, she said, it was up to her chin, and she and her daughter nearly had to swim out of the apartment building.
“We have never been through anything like that,” McFarland said Wednesday. “It was very scary.”
Officials admit having no idea how many people remain stranded today on Day Five.
The number of people stranded on Day Four and still needing rescue “was next to impossible to say,” said Mike Steele, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Steele said that “it’s changing every minute.”
“Teams are going to search as many as 30,000 homes and buildings in at least five parishes over the next two weeks, said H. “Butch” Browning, the state fire marshal, whose office is coordinating the urban search and rescue effort.”
“We are really challenged in situations like this, where you have such widespread damage,” Browning said.
Perhaps the most disconcerting comment was Browning’s comparison to Hurricane Katrina.
He said he anticipated finding far fewer bodies than were found during a similar effort after Hurricane Katrina.
The reported final death toll from Katrina was 1,836, primarily from Louisiana (1,577) and Mississippi (238).
Louisiana Flood Lost and Found Social Media Group Godsend
Wednesday, Margo Nicole Clark posted onto a new Louisiana Flood Facebook page, “ This is what I need RIGHT now:
“If you do I have loved ones or know someone in the Livingston Parish that is possibly still missing from their home I need an address right now send a department we are working with to go and check out the property
“Please leave an address down below and and how many people at the location they are looking for.”
Clark is one of the tireless volunteers moderating the social media Facebook web page that was a rapid response to assist in the flood rescue operations.
On August 14, Christine Shultz Grenat posted onto Facebook a notice about citizens helping find missing persons during the flood. Her efforts and those of others involved in the website are nothing short of heroic. Below is the notice regarding the page, Louisiana Flood Lost and Found.
Members, this group is for helping loved ones find their friends, family and pets. Please share far and wide and add all local people from your network. Here is the link to the group if you prefer to copy/paste it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1839839072905998/
Please post using the following formula:
Post a picture (if possible) of loved one or pet that you are trying to locate, their last known address (and list subdivision, apartment complex or street name) or shelter, last time they’ve been seen or heard from, a phone number for them if you have it and a phone number for you.
Use the search feature provided at the top of this group (top right-hand corner with a magnifying glass) if you are on a computer. Use keywords such as the area they lived or would have been rescued from such as their subdivision, apartment, street, medical facility or nursing home name. Lots of times people have already asked about that areas and it’s already been mentioned which shelters they were evacuated to.
Once your loved one has been located, edit your post and type “UPDATE, Located”. Once they’ve been located, moderators will turn off commenting so that unsolved cases stay at the top of the feed and solved ones move down. The person who made the post can also turn off commenting.
Also please share this group so that we can add as many people that we can help as possible. All hands on deck!
Check here first if you are looking for someone:
American Red Cross Safe & Well Database
https://safeandwell.communityos.org/zf/safesearch/search/Check these volunteer-sourced shelter forms and spreadsheet:
The spreadsheet with compiled names is here:
https://docs.google.com/…/1LHtM0cM8c8DnV22RkohSNObraV…/edit…The form to fill out to check in safely via this method is here: https://docs.google.com/…/1h_V1G0Vx_krwqOFeabBrJGefoqw…/edit
Also Google Person Finder:
https://google.org/personfinder/2016-louisiana-floodWBRZ is also compiling a missing persons page to help:
http://www.wbrz.com/…/displaced-residents-seek-missing-fami…If you need rescue please don’t post in here. Post in the Flood Rescue group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/152880778482582/
They ask that you fill the Urgent Rescue form out if you have a rescue request:
https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLScfIygEgXIuiM_Ddy…/viewform
Does this unknown number link to why officials prevented rescue volunteers in some areas – ones where officials had not been, yet? It’s hard to imagine areas still not visited, the resources unavailable when the US military is as obscenely well-heeled as it is.
It seems Obama is more interested in sending our military to kill innocent people in Syria and Libya than to save victims in the US. Obscene indeed. And neither Clinton nor Trump will be any better. Meanwhile our bloated government bureaucracy and Congress are twiddling their thumbs as usual.
Exactly. Thank you, Brown.
The SAME bloated government bureaucracy and Congress that YOU LEFTIST’S VOTED IN!!!
Hi – You must be joking. As if I’d vote into office someone who’d proven through words and actions to be a Manchurian candidate, so to speak. He told everyone who his adviser was and that should have been enough to pop people’s big hope bubble: Kissinger. Again dear Hi, your rant is misdirected. But hey – Thank you, for being here and commenting.
The comment was directed at Brown.
I certainly didn’t vote for Obama. I knew he would give us more of the same as Republicans and Democrats before him. The GOP and Dems are just two versions of the same party. We need a third party president.