Fergie's Tech Blog

Katrina Missing Avoiding Being 'Found'?

Brock Meeks writes for MSNBC:

There are more than 6,600 people still missing as a result of Hurricane Katrina, according to the National Center for Missing Adults, a group working with the Justice Department on the issue.

The missing are out there, somewhere. Alive or dead or … just plain gone with the wind.

"What a perfect time for someone to disappear," says Gary Hargrove, Harrison County coroner and member of an ad hoc task force working to locate the missing from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

Hargrove’s task force has winnowed the missing list from the 1,300s down to just 68. "But really, there are only 12 missing," he says quite matter-of-factly. And frankly, it’s only those 12 he’s really concerned about. "The other 56 are child molesters or other types of criminal" that have likely used the chaos wrought by Katrina to slip into the wind, Hargrove said. "These are people that don’t want to be found, aren’t going to be found."

The dozen remaining missing are likely deceased, Hargrove acknowledged; however, without a body he can’t declare them dead. And so the wait goes on, even if the searching has long since stopped.

posted by Fergie @ 12/09/2005 12:08:00 PM