If it was a plane crash, you'd have a list of the passengers and you'd start calling families to locate the next of kin. In this case, the next of kin may be displaced as well. They may have moved several times since the hurricane ? from Louisiana to a shelter, to another shelter to an apartment or trailer ? and tracing them is very difficult.

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The wonderful thing about nature is its resilience. The bacterial contaminants will not last a long time in the lake. ... The organic material will degrade with natural processes. Metals will fall and probably be captured with the sediments.

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