The list of folks who remain missing after Ike still numbers nearly 300 more than a week after Hair Balls reported on it, but the picture may get brighter by the day’s end.
That list – the most troubling aspect of which is the scattered entries of missing persons with single-digit ages – may be cut in half today as the Red Cross begins door-to-door inquiries on and around Galveston Island, Laura Recovery Center director Bob Walcutt tells Hair Balls.
“[The Red Cross is] going to be accessing our database and going door-to-door trying to get people to identify whether they’re actually missing or back at their homes…I would say within a week – whatever’s left after that is probably those who are going to be a lot harder to find,” Walcutt says, adding that those still on the list at that point will have “quite possibly” lost their lives.
Walcutt also says he’s heard that recovery teams are heading Saturday to Chambers County to comb the debris fields. Here’s hoping the door-to-door effort is the more successful of the endeavors.
– Blake Whitaker
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2008.