God Help Us

Recovery workers are still finding bodies in the debris-strewn wasteland of the Lower Ninth Ward. Here's a quote from the article in today's Times Picayune:

Glynn said it is hard to tell how long the recovery efforts will take. Recovery workers have to be painstaking as they clear away sludge and debris in a house or a debris pile so that human remains aren't overlooked.

"A lot of people don't realize, they are surprised that we're still finding bodies -- the first workers who showed up after the storm were rescue workers, and they really were looking for survivors, not dead people. And they didn't have a list like we do of missing people, and it was so difficult to get through these houses sometimes, they just had to call and listen for a reply. You see how many times you see they wrote NE on the houses -- that means no entry. So no, it doesn't surprise me that we are finding people still."

It wouldn't surprise me if we never find the remains of all the people killed in the floods. It's information like this that tends to stun my friends from out of town, who don't really realize just how bad it still is in New Orleans.