"We don’t even know exactly who died. After September 11, 2001, the New York Times launched..."

“We don’t even know exactly who died. After September 11, 2001, the New York Times launched ‘Portraits of Grief,’ an ongoing series dedicated to documenting everyone who had died in the World Trade Center on the day the buildings fell. Times writers attempted to contact the relatives or friends of each of the 2,749 people who are though to have did in the collapse of the towers. They wrote 2,310 full portraits until the last page ran in March 2003. This was a massive dedication of staff and time and resources. New Orleans received no such effort; no team of researchers was assigned to find out who died and what their stories were.”

- Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance for Katrina to the Jena Six, 65 (via witchynoire)