The Spectator’s Notes | 17 September 2005

When a disaster or a war happens, very large estimates of the number of dead quickly emerge in the media. These tend to be propagated by two groups — those seeking money to deal with the problem, and those wanting to blame somebody for it. Thus, on 11 September 2001, some early estimates spoke of up to 40,000 dead, and even the more serious ones referred to 5,000. The actual figure was about 2,800. In Iraq a report in the Lancet, using an extraordinary method of extrapolation from a tiny sample, came up with the figure of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians; yet it seems that the true figure, though bad enough, is a small fraction of that. Now we have the effects of Katrina. As soon as I read last week’s press figure of 10,000 dead, I did not believe it. The disaster is a terrible one, but I found it hard to imagine how so many could have been unable to find refuge.