More Than 1,000 Katrina Children Still Missing

Pacific News

The NCMEC registered 4,828 Katrina children in the weeks following the hurricane, and has resolved 73 percent of those cases. As of Nov. 8, however, 1,286 children had yet to be united with loved ones. Sixty-three and a half percent were listed as black in the registry. That is consistent with the 2000 New Orleans census figures of 67 percent black.

Some of the 1,286 children were listed as lost not by parents and guardians, but by relatives such as grandmothers. It is possible that some children may be with parents or other family. Still, the numbers of children missing are high by any measure and can be attributed in part to the chaos of the evacuation and the lack of records.

Another disturbing possibility is that some children could have been kidnapped. "There were 4,000 sex offenders evacuated along with the children," O'Brien said. These sex offenders have not yet registered their whereabouts as required by law in most states. However, so far there have been no cases of sex offenders found with missing children.

In addition to the NCMEC Web site, www.missingkids.com..., there are 28 sites on the Internet devoted to reuniting Katrina families. The Red Cross has a site, www.katrinasafe.org..., as does craigslist.org....


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Xinhuanet: Thousands still missing after Hurricane Katrina: report

2005-11-22


The whereabouts of 6,644 people, reported missing after Hurricane Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast in late August, have not been determined, raising the prospect that the death toll from the disaster could be higher than the 1,306 recorded so far in Louisiana and Mississippi, the USA Today newspaper reported Tuesday.

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Detroit News

In the evacuations after New Orleans flooded, families were scattered across 48 states. Those overseeing evacuations, in their rush to clear people from the city, often separated families as they pressed them onto buses, helicopters and planes, which then went in different directions.

Documentation proving custody of children or other family ties was destroyed or lost. Access to phones and computers was minimal, creating gaps between the time families were separated and the time children were reported missing. Shelters had no coordinated system for feeding evacuees' names, birth dates and other information into a national database.

Many children had been in the care of aunts, grandparents, great-grandparents or unrelated guardians before the storm, and those caretakers often lacked information crucial to finding children, such as birth dates, names of the youngsters' friends, recent photographs and nicknames.

"They're scattered physically, which doesn't help, but they're also scattered socially," said Burke. "When you have this sort of family structure, it's very difficult. When they scatter, they're just gone."


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