485 Children Still Missing 4 Months After Katrina

WWLTV reports that 485 Children are still missing post Katrina and once again FEMA is at the center of the problem. FEMA has refused to release information to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Louisiana Clearing House for Missing Children. FEMA is running its own missing person's hotline but "Walter Fahr, manager of the Louisiana Clearing House for Missing Children, said FEMA has names, addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of evacuees that could help connect parents with children." He went on to to say "the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has had more expertise than FEMA in finding missing children." FEMA says this.....

the agency could only release personal information to law enforcement such as the FBI. FEMA’s Nicol Andrews said the FBI made its first request for a broad amount of data on December 5 and that information was released three days later. There was a request for more information that was given to the FBI Thursday. Andrews said there has been no delay, adding that finding children has been a key priority for FEMA.

NO DELAY! Can you imagine not knowing where your child was for 4 Months??? Or a child without their parents for 4 long months???

These are extraordinary circumstances under which FEMA certainly could have sought an exception from lawmakers to expedite the process of reuniting families. Obviously they can not do the job of finding these children. FEMA should step aside and turn over pertinent information to the experts. They have been turning over information to the FBI but it is unclear if that information has or will in the future go to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
(SEE UPDATE)

Finally how could this story have gone unreported until now?

Click to view WWLTV story

UPDATE: December 27..... I just spoke with The Center for Missing and Exploited Children and they report the FEMA information is now available to them and with that info they are making progress in clearing names from their list.

UPDATE: Commenters here and elsewhere have raised the issue of race as a factor in the delay for finding these children. You can download the database of missing Katrina/Rita children from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

There are now 465 missing children.
Missing Children by State:
LA......445
MS.......16
TX.........4

432 are from the New Orleans area and 16 from MS so 96% if not more are certainly Katrina victims

Missing Children by RACE:

Black..................336
Black/Hisp............3
Bi-racial...............10
White...................20
White/Hisp............8
American Indian.....2
Asian......................1
Unknown.............85