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Oct 2, 2008 5:02 am US/Central
As Many As 50 Still Missing After Ike
Search Teams ID 5 'Hot Spots' For Ike Victims
GALVESTON (AP) ―
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Sherrie Hoppal displays some family photographs that survived in her flooded home from Hurricane Ike on Sept. 24, 2008, in Galveston.
Dave Einsel/Getty Images
Search teams looking for as many as 50 people who remain missing since Hurricane Ike have identified five "hot spots" where they will focus their efforts on Thursday, officials said.
Mounds of debris scattered across Bolivar Peninsula likely conceal the remains of those still missing, authorities said. Long-awaited reinforcements from state search-and-rescue units are expected to arrive Thursday with trained dog teams to search for bodies.
"The sooner we can get closure the better," Crystal Beach Volunteer Fire Chief David Loop said in a story in the Houston Chronicle. "My main concern is to make sure we do everything possible and make every effort we can to have a good, clean recovery."
The search for bodies is also expected to move offshore to uninhabited Goat Island, where one storm victim's body was already found and where large, remote piles of debris have collected.
On Wednesday, trained dogs identified several potential body sites amid the remains of beach houses. Searchers flagged at least two sites that will receive closer inspection.
"It's going to take more time and manpower to go sifting through all the debris," Galveston County Medical Examiner Stephen Pustilnik told the newspaper. "All that stuff has to be overturned and sifted through and taken to a place where it can be spread out and looked at."
The renewed efforts to find bodies has come too late for some, including Raul "Roy" Arrambide, whose mother, sister and nephew disappeared while evacuating from a beach house in Port Bolivar. The two vehicles they left in have been found, with no sign of bodies.
"I really don't have any confidence with the way this is being done," Arrambide said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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