Real Death Toll In Galveston Could Be In the Thousands

That is the headline that you won't read or hear from any of the Houston media. Why? Because they aren't being allowed onto the devastated island. At all.

As recovering journalist, this gives me the mean reds.

I understand that the city, state and national government are trying to keep the aftermath of Hurricane Ike from turning into the post-Katrina apocalypse that New Orleans morphed into. Not only am I sympathetic to the urgency the government is feeling to avoid that debacle, but I also believe measures should be taken to keep Sean Penn and his shotgun off the streets.

It begs to ask: When does ensuring the safety of your residents cross the line and just become martial law? I don't know the answer to that question. I do know that the idiotic mayor of Galveston is making Ray Nagin look like a quantum physicist. Which leads to another question: is this marital law or sheer incompetence?

The only difference between Galveston's Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and the aforementioned leader of New Orleans is the type of governor pulling their strings. Texas Governor "Slick" Rick Perry isn't exactly the best thing since sliced bread, but he's smart enough to realize that Thomas was one more press conference away from sending him to the same fate as Kathleen Blanco, the now former governor of Louisiana. (She got voted out mainly because of the handling of Katrina and has been replaced by the more than capable Bobby Jindal.)

But I digress.

I could go on and on about the way Galveston's local government is handling this tragedy. I want to focus a bit on the media being kept at barge pole's length from the site of the disaster. This had been on my mind for a while now – how there was very little actual reporting from the streets of Galveston. I also found it suspicious that they only have confirmed 25 or so hurricane-related deaths. And the press seems more than willing to take this at face value, when things don't add up.

This morning a little birdie told me something interesting. She said her brother is a fireman and participating in the rescue and body recovery effort. On average, her brother claimed he was pulling out about 20 bodies a day. Hold up, I said. That can't be! If he's pulled out that many bodies a day then the total count can't be 51. To which she replied: "It is far greater than that. They have brought in a mobile morgue and expect the final body count to be around 10,000."

Now I'm not implying that this is true. I suspect this is the exhaustion of a beleaguered rescuer. So keep in mind its just gossip that I heard. But there is another rumor floating out there -- that FEMA is running out of body bags. When you consider that the Bolivar Peninsula is largely untouched, even today, it's enough to make you cringe.

However, if the government (at any level) is keeping just 1,000 deaths from the public – then we aren't that different from China or Russia or Cuba. If this is the work of a stupid local and county government who screwed up by not demanding everyone leave well before Ike struck and is now trying to cover up their mistake, it's a criminal travesty. If the state and the federal government are assisting in this, then...this country is not what we take it to be.

And nobody's trying to get at the story. They'll pick at Sarah Palin's kids, but won't try to figure out what's going on on the Bolivar Peninsula or most of Galveston Island?

But don't get me wrong; this is not a statement that we've gone to hell and the Nazis now run America. The toll is probably magnified several fold by frustrated and exhausted rescuers. This is not an invitation for Sean Penn to bust out his weaponry and hire a skiff. I'm just saying that there is more than meets the eye going on here and very wise man once told me: "If you aren't pissed off then you aren't paying attention."

Are we paying attention? Or are we more worried about getting our power turned back on? And where the hell is the bulldog mentality that these arrogant, moronic reporters pride themselves on?