AMY GOODMAN: You followed them?

TINA SUSMAN: I was actually in the car with them, and we spent, I think, six or seven hours that day following up on five cases. Just to give you an example of the kinds of things that they're having to contend with, I mean, a lot of the children – first of all, the number of children officially still missing at that time, that was the end of November, is about 1,300. It's a huge amount.

AMY GOODMAN: These are missing or dead? We don't know?

TINA SUSMAN: We don't know. They believe that the vast majority of them are safe somewhere, but because of all the chaos we heard about the evacuation efforts, because of the lack of infrastructure, because of the evacuees, the families who don't have computers -- they can’t send emails to their families. They can’t pick up a cell phone and call people, because the shelters had no system for registering who came in, who went out, and now because of the pending evacuation of people from hotel rooms across the country, you know, there's no way, even if these children are safe, how are their relatives who have been flung across the country, often through no fault of their own, supposed to find each other.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for one thing, it seems like the media could play an absolutely key role here. In the midst of the hurricane and the aftermath, you had the pictures going up. And you realize for family members who were forced out, they might not even have pictures right now. But, Leah Hodges, how important is this for the media, for people to be able to speak out and describe who their loved ones are and for kids and for adults to go on-air, to say who they're looking for? And what about the role of the U.S. government here?

LEAH HODGES: The U.S. government, absolutely, and the news media, but particularly, especially, the U.S. government since they bear the brunt of responsibility for the mass dispersion and for the atrocities that happened to us, they have a serious, serious burden incumbent upon them to help locate missing family members, as well as to reunite families who have been dispersed. We are still in a state of emotional shock. We are still having horrible nightmares. It's as if our hearts have been ripped into so many different directions, because our families are so far-flung and so widely dispersed. This – it's just a horrible – another horrible, horrible nightmare that has arisen from this entire aftermath, horrible aftermath.

AMY GOODMAN: Clearly, the government has – does not want these numbers just – I mean, I think very much out there, it's not in their favor. When you say something like 6,600 people, that is more than twice the number who died on 9/11. Now, again, this is missing and dead, but in the search that you went on for missing children, did any clues, any children, were they found?

TINA SUSMAN: We actually – yes, two children and their mother, that I focused on -- actually, my main story -- were found about – actually two days after we were searching for them. And I actually spoke to the mother, and the – you know, one of the things she told me during her evacuation from the Convention Center in New Orleans really illustrated just how these children got separated from their families. She had spent a week stranded in her apartment. When the water went down enough, she was able to get her children to the Convention Center. They were waiting to get on a bus, and when, finally, they were able to get onto that bus, she told me that a police officer came and took her two children -- one is six, and one is a one-year-old -- took them, and put them on the bus and tried to prevent her from getting on the bus. The idea was ‘Well let's get the kids on the bus,’ which might sound okay, except that if the rest of the family is getting left behind and there's no way for people to get them back together what really – really, what good does it do? That's why we are in the mess we are in now.

Now, this lady would not take this. She fought, and she was able to get on the bus finally. If you speak to her on the phone, you will understand why. She clearly is not one to be pushed around. But she told me later, you know, I can’t – I dread to think what would have happened if I had not pushed my way and fought with that police officer. Now, to force a mother, a parent, anybody, to have to fight to stay with their family during this situation, that’s just not the way it should be done. And if you have spent time overseas dealing with international emergencies, which I did for many years, and you speak to aid groups like the International Rescue Committee, who specializes in this kind of management, one of the things they say is, ‘keep the families together.’ You always have to keep the families together, and if you separate them, make sure that the kids have name tags even if it means scrawling their names on their skin, which is actually what they have done in Pakistan since the earthquake.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tina Susman, this is part one of this discussion. I ask you if you can come back next week, because -- and Leah Hodges -- this is too important to leave here. We will continue our series on the aftermath of Katrina, more than three months after the hurricane. Tina Susman of Newsday; Leah Hodges, a New Orleans community leader and evacuee now in Atlanta.

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