“Lost: The Sequel”

Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Ike pummeled the upper Texas coast, upwards of 400 of its residents cannot be located, according to today’s Houston Chronicle. Hopefully, many of the missing still may be without the power to contact worried family. Or some evacuees chose not to return. Or those who could afford to jet to Aspen or Paris to ride out the storm took a relaxing side trip before returning.

Or, as many family, friends and officials fear, maybe they were swept away into the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay or buried in the new sand drifts carved by Ike. 

The Chronicle reported that the body of Gail Ettenger, 58, a Bolivar resident who attempted to ride out the storm, washed up 12 days later in a debris pile in Chambers County — 10 miles inland from her home.

As Ike hit land, the Coast Guard rescued about 100 Bolivar residents who remained behind, thinking the storm would take a southerly course. But as the hurricane intensified at least 150 people were still stranded on the peninsula, the Coast Guard reported.

They most likely weren’t the only beach dwellers taken by surprise by Ike’s furious path. Newscasts predicted ike to be a “minor” Category 2, a “weakling” many had ridden out without hassle before. But Ike pumped up into a Cat 3 packing Cat 4 storm surges when it punched in. Those who gambled may have lost everything.

Abandoned and overturned cars along marshes, debris fields and flood waters may harbor more ominous clues. Were the vehicles merely pushed by the surge from the safety of their garages, or were they transporting late evacuees who met the floods head on?

Many of the doomed areas rely on limited volunteer fire departments to spearhead rescues and they are literally swamped (no pun) with search and rescue — or recovery — efforts.  The professional local first responders also find resources exhausted.  Even so, the Chronicle reports that the Galveston County Sheriff’s office denied assistance from the respected non-profit Texas EquuSearch SAR teams from coming in to help locate some of the 200 lost souls in that county alone, even though many of the missings’ relatives requested such assistance. EquuSearch, by the way, has spearheaded search-and-rescue operations for missing persons internationally.

Who knows how many of the transient populations that live in Galveston and coastal compounds cannot be accounted for since no one possibly cares about them?

Yes, who really cares about them all — the transients and the other 400 missing souls? How come the national news hasn’t jumped on this story like a pit bull with lipstick?

Is it that the missing or dead are invisible — wiped out to sea or buried in tsunami-like debris piles or buried in unmarked graves underneath sand dunes? If we had those visibly shocking bloated bodies floating in what were once yards and streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, maybe Anderson Cooper would focus a camera on one as he motored by embedded with SAR teams? 

Perhaps Ike chose to leave no bodies, at least none we can find at present. Maybe no floating corpses exist. Maybe they will never be found. 

Nevertheless, their story needs to be told. They must not be forgotten because I see no reports on national news about the Lost 400.  I hear no debated words condemning the continuing ignominious and ignoramusful response of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to another natural disaster. That the Department of Homeland Security fails to make the disappearance of 400 US residents a top priority should send shivers of terror down our collective spines.

Unfortunately, these Lost 400 are invisible. No one talks about them on the network or cable news. Friends outside the area do not ask about the future of the Lost 400. That’s why I think we need to make a TV series about those still missing from Hurricane Ike. Let’s make it a sequel of the popular, Emmy-winning TV drama Lost.  We can call it Lost: The 400 about a bunch of people from all walks of life who, instead of crash landing in an airplane on a deserted island, are swept away from a populated island into parts unknown.

Maybe if we knew their names, faces, relationships, families, hopes and dreams as we do the fictional TV characters, the fan site blogs would pop up to help locate them, their plight would be discussed around water coolers at work, and the 24/7 TV news cycle would yak them up — of course, only as long as the ratings remain respectable.

© 2008 winkingbuddha.com