This, of course, has led many people to wonder where those people might be located? My own personal theory was that as the 30+ feet storm surge receded many of the people were likely swept out to sea into the Mississippi Sound. For example, I had heard of one report of an Asian woman in Biloxi who had climbed to the top of a tree to hang on for her life who witnessed a mother and her four children being swept away by the water. I also find it interesting that the Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove himself expressed similar concerns in a recent interview in the local newspaper where it said, 'Hargrove fears some of the caskets could have been swept into the Mississippi Sound.'
All this time I had assumed that someone was out on the Mississippi Sound looking for and recovering these bodies but then last week I heard reports from local law enforcement that said that there was still no one in charge of recovering bodies from the Mississippi Sound . All efforts had focused entirely on recovering bodies on land only. Local law enforcement had not been allowed on the water as the water was officially off limits to everyone including local law enforcement as per Coast Guard orders. So naturally the local law enforcement was frustrated knowing that no one was recovering the bodies at sea.
Allegedly the Coast Guard did not have orders to recover bodies from the Mississippi Sound as their primary mission was to restore the shipping lanes. I was told that the Coast Guard crews were seeing bodies floating amongst the debris while sharks fed on them but were forced to leave them. Of course, this upset the Coast Guard crew members because they were not allowed to recover the bodies because they had no "orders" from above to do so. So some local law enforcement members knew of my encounter with Mr.
Cheney and they contacted me to see if I could raise awareness to this issue with my contacts in the national media. I reported what I knew to Op Ed News who proceeded to begin investigating.
So this past Saturday I recruited my brother, who is a deputy Sheriff, and my father to go out on the water to see what we could find. The primary problem was that we were now almost 5 weeks out from the storm and so it was likely that if there were any bodies many would have either been eaten, sunk, or washed far out to sea. We were in a relatively small boat and so we went to Cat Island, Ms. which is about 8 miles south of the coastline because we had heard that they had found numerous dead animals washing up on the shore there. We saw quite a bit of debris along the way and had to drive the boat fairly slowly in order to avoid sinking. On the island itself we found numerous wrecked cars which is odd considering that there are no roads on Cat Island. We also saw a dead dolphin, a dead boar, a dead deer, a dead snake, a live snake, and a dead sea turtle (endangered species). There were numerous wrecked boats. One was named "My Lady Too" and was from Mandeville, Lousiana which is just outside of New Orleans. We checked the wrecked boats for dead bodies but found none. We also found shoes, clothes, all sorts of other random debris and a suitcase with a label that said "New Orleans". Of course, I documented all of this with my videocamera/digital camera and will soon have the images up on www.hurricanekatrinasucked.com . Though we found no bodies I still have every reason to believe the information I heard was true. Finding bodies at this point would be much like finding a needle in a hay stack. Still I would like to get to the 'bottom' of this and find out exactly what was the official policy of the government and especially the Coast Guard with respect to those victims of Katrina that were lost at sea. It appears the golden opportunity to recover our dead may have been lost forever leaving numerous local families in limbo. And so I would ask the following questions:
Was there anyone in charge of locating/recovering bodies from the Mississippi Sound and if so exactly when did they begin looking?
How many bodies did your crews see floating in the water?
If you saw bodies why weren't they recovered?
How many boats and/or aircraft were actively searching for bodies in the Mississippi Sound in the weeks after the storm?
I would also encourage any crew members that were on any boats in the Mississippi Sound in the days and weeks after the storm to contact me at clone9@yahoo.com to share what info they may have.
People who can verify these reports will have their anonymity respected if they so desire. Thanks for your help in helping us answer these very important questions.
Ben Marble, M.D.
PS I would also like to make sure everyone is aware of my announcement last week that even though I lost my home and my recording studio I will be donating my share of the proceeds from my EBAY auctions/sales at cafepress.com/benmarblemd to the SALVATION ARMY since my grandmother worked for them for several decades.
Dr. Ben Marble www.hurricanekatrinasucked.com recently achieved national prominence when he told Dick Cheney on CNN live to go f*ck himself. He is an ER doctor with a new child born during the days following Hurricane Katrina
