Post IKE: Missing Person Hotline - 866-898-5723

While the Houston Chronicle is ridiculing people who worry there may be many more deaths, the same newspaper published an article on the small town of San Leon in Galveston County that give us a different story.  A few words from the article are enough:

..."65 percent of the town of 4,200 stayed in San Leon during the storm, but many are still missing." "Wanted in San Leon: Residents," Houston Chronicle, September 19, 2008.

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Missing persons hotline activated

From staff reports
The Galveston County Daily News
Published September 19, 2008

The Laura Recovery Center has activated a hotline for those searching for missing friends and family who live in the unincorporated areas of Galveston County.

Unincorporated areas of the county include Bolivar Peninsula, Bacliff, San Leon, Freddiesville and Algoa.

The number for the hotline is 1-866-898-5723 or 281-482-5723. When calling, have this information regarding the missing person:

• Description of the individual;

• Address;

• Last time they were in contact with the individual;

• Plans the individual had for the storm; and

• A picture of the missing person if available.

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Some of Ike's missing may have washed away
With no idea of numbers, authorities say final accounting may take years
updated 11:49 p.m. CT, Wed., Sept. 17, 2008

MSNBC

GALVESTON, Texas - The death toll from Hurricane Ike is remarkably low so far, considering that legions of people stayed behind as the storm obliterated row after row of homes along the Texas coast. But officials suspect there are more victims out there and say some might simply have been swept out to sea.

Exactly how many is anybody's guess, because authorities had no sure way to track those who defied evacuation orders. And the number of people reported missing after the storm, whose death toll stands at 22 in Texas and 56 overall in the U.S., is fluctuating.

State search and rescue teams on Wednesday pulled out of Galveston after checking on almost 6,000 people and performing more than 3,500 rescues.
"We don't know what's out there in the wilds," said Galveston County medical examiner Stephen Pustilniks. "Searchers weren't looking for bodies; they were looking for survivors."

Authorities are now relying on Red Cross workers and beach patrols to run welfare checks on people named by anxious relatives.

The Galveston Island Beach Patrol is still making roughly 100 checks a day on storm holdouts, working from tips called in by anxious relatives.

On his rounds Wednesday, lifeguard Marc Butler hit at least a half-dozen homes. At only one did he find who he was looking for.

Questions for years to come
As the hurricane closed in, authorities in three counties alone estimated 90,000 people ignored evacuation orders. In Galveston, another 6,000 refused to leave after Ike hit.

Nobody is suggesting that tens of thousands died, but determining what happened to those unaccounted for is a painstaking task that could leave survivors wondering for months or years to come.

Authorities concede that at least some of those who haven't turned up could have been washed out to sea, as at least one woman on the peninsula apparently was, and that other bodies might still be found.

"I'm not Pollyana. I think we will find some," said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county's highest-ranking elected official.

Pustilniks' office brought in two refrigerated tractor-trailers to store bodies until autopsies are performed. One sat in front of the medical examiner's office Wednesday morning with a sign on the side: "Jesus Christ is Lord not a cuss word."