In tomorrow’s Sunday edition, the New York Times published the results of their sample of 260 people who died during or shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast:
More than 100 of them drowned. Sixteen died trapped in attics. More than 40 died of heart failure or respiratory problems, including running out of oxygen. At least 65 died because help – shelter, water or a simple dose of insulin – came too late.
What is worse is that most of them survived the hurricane itself.
They died, however, from the flooding and the sometimes bloody anarchy that seized New Orleans and its citizenry in the aftermath.
Reporters Shaila Dewan and Janet Roberts wrote this disclaimer:
The results are not necessarily representative of the 1,100 people who died in the storm-ravaged part of the state. The 268 deaths examined by The Times were not chosen through a scientific or random sample, but rather were selected on the basis of which family members could be reached, and which names had been released by state officials.
The rate at which the Ninth Ward and other lowlying areas flooded is now known to have been much faster and far deadlier than previously imagined. Not unlike, for example, the tsunami that inundated Thailand last year. If someone was swept away, and a relative or friend tried to grab hold of them, the current could pull both of them down to drown.
Water – rising as fast as a foot every 10 minutes – overtook many who thought the worst had passed. In St. Bernard Parish, just east of the city, Joan Emerson, 57, was on the phone with her son at midmorning on Monday when he heard her screaming, then the phone went dead, a family friend said. Her body was found 18 days later.
In Arabi, the St. Bernard town adjacent to the Lower Ninth Ward, the water came so fast that Kenneth Young did not have time to save his wife of 56 years, Gloria, who was partly paralyzed and bedridden, relatives said. He stayed with her until the last possible moment, watching her drown before he narrowly escaped to the attic, where the couple’s daughter waited.
More statistics:
Most of the victims were elderly–65 years old on up.
Of the adults below that age who died, a quarter were bedridden because of illness or disabled. In other words, they needed medical assistance to get out, but there was none.
Three quarters of the black victims were members of the New Orleans working class.
Many died alone.
Eddie Cherrie Jr. stayed behind with his mother, Onelia, who relied on a walker and blood pressure medication. “It’s true nothing stopped us from leaving,” he said. “But also, it’s not that easy to leave with a 91-year-old woman.”
They survived the storm but were later taken by helicopter to the airport, where officials separated a badly dehydrated Ms. Cherrie from her son, leaving her to die alone, he said. Mr. Cherrie said if the levees had not broken, she would have survived. “That’s malfeasance,” he said.
Although these elderly were nearing the ends of their lives, their survivors maintain that they deserved to die with dignity, and not in the manner in which they were allowed to die, in one survivor’s words for his uncle, like a rat.
At least these survivors knew what had happened to their loved ones, but for others not knowing is hardest to bear.
More than 60 families told The Times that they still did not know how or in some cases even where their loved ones perished. As a result, a full portrait remains impossible.
