[SauronOfMordor]

As I earlier noted on another thread, there's lots of people who are trying to contact people in Mississippi, without success. The assumption is that phone service is out. For most, that lack of contact really is because phones are down. For some unknown percentage, the lack of contact is because the people are dead.

The Gulf Coast is a big area. If the news media broadcast lots of stuff about large numbers of deaths, you would have hundreds of thousands of concerned people clogging the roads to the affected areas to go and find out what happened to their relatives and friends. I don't think the government wants that while they're still working on rescue efforts. And there's no way to stop people from trying to get to the shore along a myriad of back roads

Around about now, the assumption "they're out of contact because the phones are down and the roads are not good" becomes less likely. Even if the phones are down for miles around, SOMEBODY with a 4WD vehicle is going to head north at some point for supplies and to make some calls to family. If he's at all considerate, he's going to ask his neighbors if they have any messages they want to relay to family and friends once he gets to a working phone or cell tower.

Past this weekend, there's no advantage to attempting to continue the fiction that there's only 186 or so deaths in MS. People WILL start getting in their cars to go look for their relatives

[My Favorite Headache]

Past this weekend, there's no advantage to attempting to continue the fiction that there's only 186 or so deaths in MS. People WILL start getting in their cars to go look for their relatives. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is already starting to happen and it is clogging some roads up with cars because people have nowhere to stay and are sleeping in their cars as they search for relatives and friends.