URL http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E2DD103EF934A25751C0A9609C8B63

DATE/ AUTHOR None	AUTHORS: Shaila Dewan

H For Want of Money, Remains of Some Hurricane Victims Are Not Collected

S1 There are no longer corpses in plain sight, as there were for days after Hurricane Katrina hit.
S2 But nearly six months after the storm, officials believe there are still dozens of unrecovered bodies in New Orleans.
S3 They even have a pretty good idea where they are.

S4 But no one is looking for them.

S5 Instead, they have been left in muck-filled houses or piles of debris for family members to stumble upon.
S6 Last Saturday, for example, Alicia and Herman Robertson found their nephew, Kendrick Smith, in the bedroom where he had lain face down since the storm.

S7 Family members, scattered to Houston, San Antonio and Ville Platte, La., said they had repeatedly asked the authorities to go by the house, at 2305 Flood Street, to look for Mr. Smith, 31.
S8 ''The city never done nothing,'' Mr. Robertson said.
S9 ''It was horrible to see one's loved one laid out like that.''

S10 Based on reports from family members, officials have compiled a list of 225 addresses in the Ninth Ward whose residents are still missing.
S11 But the search has become snarled in yet another tangle over agency jurisdiction and cost.

S12 The New Orleans Fire Department's urban search and rescue team began combing the Ninth Ward in early October, but stopped two months later when money for overtime ran out, Steven P. Glynn, the chief of special operations for the department, said.
S13 ''The superintendent had to decide whether to continue that operation or provide adequate fire protection,'' he said.

S14 The process of ''clearing'' a house from the list is not simple, Chief Glynn said.
S15 Even if the house is still standing, furniture must be removed and as much as two feet of mud shoveled out before searchers can be certain no body is there.
S16 For those houses that have collapsed, the current plan is to have a search-and-rescue team work alongside the Army Corps of Engineers, which is charged with debris clearance and cleanup.

S17 Chief Glynn said that he had explained the situation to at least half a dozen officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that he had yet to get a promise of money for more searches, which would cost about $400,000 for three months.

S18 Nicol Andrews, a spokeswoman for FEMA, said the Fire Department had not filled out a ''formal project worksheet'' requesting money.
S19 But, Ms. Andrews said, ''by all accounts, this is something FEMA absolutely would pay for.''

S20 The wait is maddening, said Chief Glynn, a third-generation New Orleans firefighter.
S21 ''It's really not the dead, because you can't do much for those people,'' he said.
S22 ''It's the families, who are living with this.''

S23 Some of those families have given DNA samples to the state, called the police and tried to search themselves.
S24 Lamont Marrero, 26, believes his mother, who was partly paralyzed, is still in her Ninth Ward home, but when he tried to enter, he found the iron security doors rusted shut.

S25 ''We don't have any answers at all,'' Mr. Marrero said.
S26 ''We don't know anything.
S27 That's the only thing left to do, is search the house.''

