Existing comment:
X Marks Your House
Every house, scathed or not, in the flooded areas will be marked with a spray-painted "X" and other notations within the four sections of the mark. Here is what residents could find when they return and what the markings mean:
Hasty Search:
Indicated by a single slash
Thorough Search:
Top quadrant: Date home was searched
Left quadrant: Initials of search squad
Right quadrant: Notations for hazards such as gas and water leaks, downed wires, infestations or dead animals.
Bottom quadrant: Designates body count (in this case, "0DB" means "zero dead bodies")
Signs of the Storm:
Messages of hope and fear were scrawled on doors, roofs and walls across the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina's deadly blow on Aug. 29, 2005.
Doors and panels such as these from New Orleans and Mississippi bore spray-painted markings left by search teams. The "X" indicated the building had been searched. Each quadrant of the X had its meaning -- the date the structure was searched, who searched it, the number of bodies found inside and any other hazards.
Homes with cryptic search and rescue markings were haunting reminders of Katrina's wrath. In New Orleans, Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose wrote about driving past a house marked "1 Dead in Attic" in the city's 8th Ward. "Who grieved over 1 Dead in Attic and who buried 1 Dead in Attic?" he asked in an elegy to the city's dead. |