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Hurricane Katrina Napster


SkinWalker

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cos we all like to say "i told you so"? ;)

 

I was watching a bbc documentary on the katrina situation and apparently a lot of the initial "after the event" new reporting was totally inacurate and sensationalist.

 

Much of the "crime wave" that was reported was blown out of all proportion, and (for example) the reports of residents firing on police are completely without evidence. One such incident turned out to be the noise of a gas can exploding.

Don't know if other incidents like the rapes at the superdome were real or not.

 

Obviously it was a fairly major mess-up, but it seems the media did overhype a lot of it.

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The '93 flood had only 48 fatalities.

 

The annual average fatality rate for floods is 136. The annual fatality rate for hurricanes is 162.

 

The body count from Katrina has reached three digits already, and it'll be pure, unalloyed luck if it stops before the fourth.

 

While these numbers aren't all that informative (notably they lack sample size and standard deviation - although with a little efford you could get the sample size for hurricanes from the numbers available otherwhere in the article), they do provide some measure of scale.

 

If you are interested in doing the numbers for yourselves, this link provides a list of recent disasters to hit the US. Notice that they only include those which cost more than $1.0*10^9

 

Based on cursory examination of the fatality rates, I'm willing to bet that Katrina is at least a couple of standard deviations above the mean, while the '93 flood is within a single standard deviation. If so, this fact - coupled with the inexcusable lack of preparedness in Washington would certainly explain the outrage.

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Over 2,000 cases of missing children still unresolved and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported that all of the children who were alone in post-Katrina shelters have now been identified and reunited with family members.

 

The Dallas Morning News reports Just 4,839 of 12,391 adults reported missing have been found (if it bugs you with a subscription/login, see http://www.bugmenot.com).

 

Current death toll estimates for Katrina are at 1021 (link probably won't last).

 

9,500+ missing adults and children and only 1021 reported dead? I sure hope the other 8480+ are located... wonder where they are?

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Hmmm. That is a bit odd. That politician intially came out with a figure of around 10,000 dead (and i assume he had some basis for that as he would look bad if he got it wrong). But all the recent news articles have been emphasising the fact that the death toll is a lot lower than initially expected, which is odd if there are still thousands unacounted for.

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It's an homage to the Physicsforums where they used the term "napster" to define stickies that were collections of links, articles and information, but not necessarily points of discussion. They had the "Physics Napster," the "Math Napster," etc. I think the only 'napsters' left there are in the skeptics subforum where there is a "ufo napster" and a "debunkers napster."

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