Anguished relatives still await word on 131 kids
Almost all, 97%, of children initially displaced by America’s worst natural disaster have been reunited with parents or other relatives, says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center For Missing & Exploited Children, a private advocacy group. Yet investigators are struggling to find the rest.
“We’re still operating under the assumption that most of these kids are with someone,” Allen says. “But some probably didn’t survive the storm and won’t be found.”
The center has heard from relatives who say they still don’t know the whereabouts of 131 children — five in Mississippi and the rest in Louisiana, mostly New Orleans.
The Find Family National Call Center in Baton Rouge, a joint federal and state effort, lists 1,960 people as missing, of whom 245 are age 20 or younger.
Together the centers have about 100 workers making more than 1,200 calls daily. Every time a child or adult is found, workers at the Baton Rouge office ring a bell — an average of 30 times daily.
“We’ve found quite a few people who didn’t want to be found,” says Henry Yennie, the Call Center’s deputy director, citing as one example an Arkansas parolee. If one parent is accused of child abuse, he says the center may honor the other parent’s request not to disclose an address or phone number.
So far, few children are known to have died from Katrina, says Robert Johannessen, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Of 824 identified victims, only 12 were under the age of 21. “Almost 80% of those who died were over the age of 50.” He says 86 bodies remain unidentified in Louisiana.
Still, parents who weren’t with their child when Katrina hit worry.
“I just want to know where she is and if she’s all right,” says Hollis McGee, of his 7-year-old daughter Jasmine. “I feel stressful. Sometimes I want to hurt myself.” McGee, who was evacuated from New Orleans to Houston, heard Jasmine and her mother survived Katrina but doesn’t know where they are. “I want to hold her in my arms,” he says. “She’s so pretty.”
David Allen knows well McGee’s agony. After nearly six months of searching, including a door-to-door hunt in New Orleans, he got a call last week that his son David Lee Morgan, 5, was evacuated to Houston with his mother.
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