Demosophia

Some Potential Confusion Over Katrina's Toll

A source inside FEMA told me recently that, as of a couple of days ago, the agency had granted 1,758 funeral benefits to families whose pre-disaster address was in Jefferson Parrish. These are confirmed deaths with confirmed identification, but the implication may not be what it seems. So far this number is not in the public domain, and I can't verify it by any independent sources, but I believe it. The thing is, any large population of people will have a certain number of deaths over any 2 week period, so it's not a given that all, or even most, of these deaths occured during the hurricane or flood. In fact, since identification is a fairly rigorous process it's probably accurate to infer that most of these deaths occured under non-disaster conditions, either after the event or before it, and people are simply applying for the funeral benefit because they're without funds. The critical issue isn't the number, but whether these deaths were a direct consequence of the storm, whether the storm was a secondary factor, or whether they would have occured storm or not. And that's simply unknown to us at this time.

But be advised that if numbers like these are leaked to MSM it's very likely that certain people will interpret them to mean that the death toll from Katrina is much higher than the current number of confirmed deaths (579 in the state of Louisiana according to FOX just a few moments ago).

(Cross-posted by Demosophist to The Jawa Report)